Man Applies for a Job at Bugatti, Skips the Interview and Goes Straight to the Company Car

Most job seekers bring a résumé. One man in Croatia brought ambition, spotted a key, and went straight from "applicant" to "company car." HR has not called him back yet. Austrian police did.

On Wednesday, Bugatti CEO Mate Rimac's Chiron, a car with a base price of 2.4 million euros, or about $2.7 million, was stolen from the company's production and technology campus near Zagreb. The keys were inside. The keys were always inside. That was the security system, and it worked beautifully right up until it met a person.

Rimac explained it on Instagram with the calm of a man standing next to the car he just got back. "I'm so proud of Croatia being so safe that I'm very relaxed, meaning I always leave my keys inside my cars, including Chiron and Nevera," he said. Most of us lock a bicycle. He trusted an entire nation with 1,500 horsepower, and the nation sent one guy to test the policy.

"I do that for years and nothing ever happened of course until something did happen now," he added. That sentence is the full history of every house fire, every shark attack and every group project.

The suspect, a Croatian man in his mid-30s, told police he had come to the company looking for a job. He saw keys in the car. He made a career decision. Some people network. Some people drive the network to Austria.

Then came the chase, the most billionaire chase ever recorded. Rimac tracked his own car through its telemetry system as it headed toward Slovenia, then jumped into his Porsche 911 to follow it. Somewhere, a man whose Corolla was stolen is still on hold with his insurance company. This man chased a supercar with his backup supercar.

Updates were shared with police in a group chat. Finally, a group chat with a purpose. Most of them are just somebody's uncle forwarding a sunset.

The Chiron is limited to 260 miles per hour, but no car alive can outrun a fuel gauge. The thief made it into Austria, stopped for gas near Seiersberg on the A9, and was arrested there. He stole one of the fastest cars on Earth and got caught doing the one thing a Toyota also has to do.

Rimac then met the suspect at a police station, which is easily the most awkward job interview in automotive history. He does not plan to press charges, though the man will still be prosecuted because of the car's value. His verdict was crisp: "Just the fact that he stole a Bugatti and especially this one told me that this guy has problems." Fair. Stealing a Bugatti is not a crime of stealth. It is a crime of wanting the whole motorway to wave at you.

The car took some damage and will be repaired. Staff will no longer leave keys in cars around the factory, which means several engineers just lost the best perk in Europe.

Rimac's message to everyone else: "Don't try your luck. It will not happen again." As for the applicant, he still has not heard back. In fairness, he took the company car home on day one, which at most firms is called a promotion.