There’s nothing terribly strange about an automaker hiring a celebrity to tout their vehicles. Last year, an ad for GM’s electric vehicles made memorable use of Will Ferrell, for instance, while Lionel Messi once featured in commercials for Indian automaker Tata Motors. So it’s not surprising that Kim Ye-ji, a South Korean sharpshooter who won a silver medal in the Paris Olympics, would wind up endorsing some sort of vehicle.
What is interesting, though, is the car company that’s begun working with her: Tesla Motors. As Electrek’s Fred Lambert pointed out, that’s because Tesla has frequently boasted of its reliance upon word-of-mouth to sell its vehicles as opposed to splashy commercials or billboards.
Tesla has walked back its strict no-advertising policy in recent years, however, and Kim’s selection as the first-ever “brand ambassador” for Tesla Korea is further evidence of this. As a Malay Mail article on the news pointed out, Kim’s selection has its roots in Tesla’s Elon Musk pointing out that Kim’s poise at the Olympics was immediately striking. This also has the benefit of being one of the least controversial things Musk has said in 2024.
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By breaking down Musk’s deceptions at Tesla, the Engineering Explained host also reveals the fallacy of the billionaire’s genius imageAs Electrek’s article on the hiring of Kim points out, this is a first for Tesla both in Korea and globally. Again, for any other automaker, the news that they were working with an Olympic athlete wouldn’t be remotely out of the ordinary. Given Tesla’s history, though, this feels significant — even if what it ultimately signifies is Tesla evolving into a more traditional automaker, with all that implies.
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