Mate Rimac Chased His Stolen Bugatti Chiron Across The Border In His 911 After It Was Nabbed From Rimac HQ

As the CEO of Bugatti Rimac responsible for making some of the most powerful and fastest interal-combustion and electrified vehicles in the world, Mate Rimac was already a pretty cool dude, but the latest situation he found himself in takes things to another level. Rimac, being the very rich and apparently very trusting man that he is, decided it's a good idea to leave his cars unlocked with the keys inside them at his company's headquarters in Croatia, in case employees ever needed to move them. It hadn't really been an issue for the 38-year-old ... until now.

📌 The Core Development

Rimac, as he always does, left his Bugatti Chiron unlocked with the keys in it outside a garage at the company's campus recently when everything went very wrong. An employee spotted the seven-figure supercar speeding away and quickly alerted colleagues, according to an Instagram video posted by the CEO. A group of employees quickly figured out that no one authorized the vehicle to be moved, and somebody had indeed stolen the car. Rimac didn't take this news lying down. Of course, he contacted police, but he also jumped behind the wheel of his fully fueled Porsche 911 (we think it's this very nice purple 992.2 Turbo S that coincidentally uses Rimac batteries) and went after the stolen car at "full throttle."

Luckily for Rimac, the Bugatti was equipped with live telemetry, meaning that, despite the thief having a one-hour head start, he and his colleagues were able to tell exactly where the car was and relay that information back to Croatian police.

🔍 Background & Sector Context

There was hope that police would intercept the Chiron and the thief before it left Croatia, but that wasn't meant to be. In fact, it made it all the way to Austria, crossing through Slovenia in the process. In Austria, the driver found himself low on fuel — not a terrible surprise given the Chiron has a quad-turbo W16 engine . After throwing half a tank of fuel in the car, which he didn't pay for, he continued driving. Eventually, Austrian police were able to catch up with him thanks to information from Rimac's group chat.

Rimac says he had decided not to press charges against the man who stole his car, but that doesn't mean he's going to walk away scot-free. I'm sure the police in Croatia, Austria, and possibly Slovenia are going to want to talk to him. Initially, Rimac, maybe with a bit of naivety, thought he'd be able to just pick up the car from the cops and drive the thief back home to his family, no harm, no foul, but "because of the value of the car, there was like 10 police cars," and he couldn't just take the car back. However, just a day later he got it back after proving he was the real owner. Apparently, the thief was local to Croatia, and had shown up to the Rimac HQ asking for job before he stole the Chiron.

📊 Industry & Real-World Impact

The incident has already changed Rimac's approach to locking his cars' doors. He's no longer going to leave keys lying around or leave cars unlocked. At the beginning of his video, he says Croatia is "super, super safe," which he admits might sound strange to folks in the U.S. and abroad. That's why he always felt fine leaving his cars unlocked.

🔮 Strategic Outlook & What Lies Ahead

"I did that for years, and nothing ever happened. Until, of course, something did happened, so I will not do that anymore," Rimac joked on Instagram . "Don't try your luck — will not happen again."