“With a name like mine, getting into the fragrance business was inevitable – why did I even fight it for so long!?” Musk asked on Twitter, where he now describes himself as a perfume salesman.

“The essence of repugnant desire” is the website description of his latest offering, which costs US$100 a bottle and is set to start shipping in the first quarter of next year, making good on a product Musk first touted in September.

Previous brain waves have included Tesla’s own-brand tequila, launched in 2020, and a pair of “short shorts” to signify Musk’s victory over investors who bet against the electric vehicle maker, now the world’s most valuable car firm.

Musk’s ambitions over the years have ranged from colonising Mars to creating a new sustainable energy economy, and in the process he has built Tesla, rocket company SpaceX, and smaller firms.

Last week the billionaire proposed to proceed with his original US$44-billion bid to take Twitter private, calling for an end to a lawsuit by the social media company that could have forced him to pay up, whether he wanted to or not.

If successful, a deal would put Musk in charge of one of the most influential media platforms and end months of litigation that damaged Twitter’s brand and fed his reputation for erratic behavior.

“Please buy my perfume, so I can buy Twitter,” Musk wrote on the platform yesterday.

The Boring Company did not respond to a query on how long it planned to keep the perfume listed.