- Kia ran a pair of ads in Norway and Finland calling out Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
- Tesla and Musk stans aren’t too happy about Kia’s joke.
- Meanwhile, the rest of the internet loves it.
If there’s one thing that Tesla CEO Elon Musk loves, it’s being the center of attention. But in Norway—one of Tesla’s earliest and most important markets—Kia just stole the spotlight. No, not by building a new EV, but by directly trolling Musk in a pair of ads targeting the recent public rejection of the CEO’s behavior.
In a bold (and let’s be honest, hilarious) marketing move, Kia Norge took a not-so-subtle jab at Musk via a now-deleted post on Instagram featuring its affordable 300-mile EV3 with a clever bumper sticker on the back that reads: “I bought this after Elon went crazy,” a take on the recently popularized “I bought this before Elon went crazy” stickers that went viral with anti-Elon Tesla owners after the U.S. presidential election.
Photo by: Twitter
Kia’s stunt was called out by one of Tesla’s unofficial spokespeople, Sawyer Merritt, on CEO Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, before being deleted.
Predictably, Tesla loyalists weren’t exactly happy with Kia’s joke. The Instagram post was flooded with comments from angry Tesla and Musk fans, calling the move unprofessional and desperate, among other terms. Musk himself also commented on Merritt’s find with disbelief, questioning if Kia’s post was real.
The rest of the internet, however, absolutely loves it.
This wasn’t the only Northern European country to call out Elon, either. Kia’s Finland marketing team took out a front-page ad in the country’s largest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, to take a very similar jab.
The ad (a screenshot of which was posted on Reddit) is said to be a twist on a Finnish phrase “Voi näitä elo päiviä,” which can be interpreted as a similar phrase to “Oh, the days we are living in.” The twist is that the Finnish word for “life” (“elo”) is swapped for “Elon,” making the phrase a bit more of a strike at the public’s view of Musk’s political meddling.
The ad goes on to call for the attention of local Finnish residents concerned about buying an American car amid a shifting political climate (hence the play on “Elon”). It invites readers to check out the Kia EV4 at an auto show in Finland’s capital, Helsinki, later this month.
Kia didn’t respond to InsideEV’s request for comment at the time of writing.
It’s important to remember here that Musk’s influence over Tesla is both the automaker’s biggest strength and biggest liability. While die-hard fans remain loyal, Musk’s increasingly controversial behavior is on the global stage. And if you’ve been paying attention, recent sales seem to reflect that.
Kia knows this. And frankly, so do other automakers. Several are playing to this and targeting EV buyers ready to leave Tesla behind for another brand. Tesla was once untouchable—the John Gotti of EVs—but now, as Musk’s impact beats the brand’s image into the ground, criticism is fair game.
