When Pablo Escobar was the richest and most powerful drug baron in the world, it was a very bad idea to get on the wrong side of him or his relatives.

These days, the late cocaine kingpin’s brother sits at the head of a legitimate company bearing his family name – but has very different methods of dealing with problems.

Earlier this year, Elon Musk found himself at the centre of a red hot argument with a company run by Roberto de Jesús Escobar Gaviria, who describes himself as the ‘former accountant and chief of assassinations of the Medellín Cartel’.



Now Roberto Escobar has vowed to ‘take down’ Musk using legal means.


His company is currently selling a flamethrower, which is on the market just over one year after Musk’s Boring Company launched its own ‘Not A Flamethrower’, which was given its name to avoid restrictions on shipping.

Mr Escobar claimed to have met a Musk representative who worked for Tesla in 2017 and discussed building a flamethrower which could be used to ‘burn money’.

He is now planning to sue the tech mogul for £77million.

Police shot Pablo Escobar dead in 1993. His brother now runs a company called Escobar Inc.

He told Metro: ‘Elon is a small little imported snake. The snakes that you see in the jungle sometimes when it gets dark and rainy.

‘I step on those snakes. He will see, my power, soon.

‘He never reached out to me, disrespecting me, disrespecting my brother, disrespecting my family, my name, everything.

‘He is a small South African boy, who should not play with the lions. I am the lion.

‘The lion decides over the future of all non-lions. Snakes are not in the kingdom.’

Roberto Escobar also claimed to be working on a tech product which will allow his firm to rival Apple.

‘I need around four years to make it bigger than Apple,’ he told The Telegraph.

This is the flamethrower made by Escobar Inc. (Photo: Escobar Inc)

‘Within the next month we are going to launch our firs,t product, I cannot tell you what it is, but it will be much better than anything Apple ever did.’

Musk released his own ‘Not a Flamethrower’ in 2018 and sold 20,000 units at $500 a pop – meaning he earned $1,000,000 from sales.

In July this year, Musk responded to the drama with the simple statement: ‘It’s Not a Flamethrower, Mr Escobar.’

At the time, we asked Roberto what his brother would do in this situation.

He joked: ‘If Pablo was alive, Elon Musk would be begging us to please take all of his Tesla shares and all his money, and we would not do it.

‘Many people have faced bigger consequences for much much less when we were ruling the world.



‘But for some reason I like this guy Elon, so I would probably take him out for a nice dinner.’

This is Elon’s ‘Not a Flamethrower’ (Picture: The Boring Company)

He added: ‘I did not talk to Elon, his engineers spoke with me. I don’t need to talk to Elon. Whoever comes to me, I speak with.

‘Elon is a small young boy. I made all the money he ever made in maximum one year. If he wants he can email me, it is easy to reach me.

‘I don’t mind to meet with him and see who is the real boss.

‘If he is not too scared. No bodyguards, just me and him, a gentleman’s meeting. In Colombia. I can not travel outside at this time.’

Escobar Inc. recently successfully fought and won a court case against a ‘cyber-squatter’ who bought the domain name PabloEscobar.com and bravely demanded $3million to hand over the virtual deeds.

After a Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution was filed, Escobar Inc. was granted ownership of the site and will use it to sell legal products and merchandise.

Pablo Escobar (Source: Rex Features)

Pablo Escobar has become something of a folk hero in Columbia, where he was known for helping the poor, but was also infamous as a ‘narco-terrorist’ who oversaw a large number of killings.

Nonetheless, he is world-famous and has only become more renowned since the Netflix series Narcos become a hit. He died in 1993 from a gunshot wound aged just 44.

We spoke to Roberto Escobar, who told us the tactics used in this case were markedly different from the approach Pablo and his cartel would have taken.


‘In the past, I would call my hitman and show him a photo,’ he said.

‘Anywhere in the world, regardless of protection, that person would immediately agree with our terms.

‘Now, we call our lawyers.’

We asked what sort of products Escobar Inc. will sell and Roberto said: ‘This is remaining a secret my friend. We will only sell the best and the latest products in the world. All legal.

‘Yes, in the beginning Pablo and I sold legal products, then it became full of powder.

‘Powder that the American Gringos in the big White House call drugs. Those guys are the biggest drug dealers themselves!

‘They invented all these powders. I was a poor boy, me and Pablo, all we did, was to sell some goods.’

However, he did also admit that it was more difficult to make huge amounts of money when selling legal products and added: ‘Narcos is very fast and easy money.

‘But fast money does not last.’

Olof Gustafsson, CEO of Escobar Inc., said Pablo spent hundreds of millions of dollars ‘maintaining his image’ and the company which bears his name would continue to legally fight anyone who stood in its way.

He said: ‘We are pleased with the outcome.

‘We are warning anyone that is doing anything relating to Pablo Escobar or profiting off our name to immediately cease those activities, we will punish anyone legally who is not paying us and not properly licensed or authorized by Escobar Inc.’

We have written to Elon Musk’s The Boring Company for comment.