For Daimler CEO, Retiring Means Embracing a Forbidden Love: BMW

(Bloomberg) -- Retirement means harvesting the fruits of lifelong labor, trying out new things, and not giving a damn what others think. For Daimler AG Chief Executive Officer Dieter Zetsche, who stepped down on Wednesday, that spells out as a three-letter word: BMW.

In a clip distributed on BMW AG’s Twitter feed, a camera follows a Zetsche lookalike -- complete with signature walrus mustache and rimless spectacles -- around on his last day at work: there’s Zetsche handing in his work badge at the front desk, bidding farewell to employees in the lobby with a few selfies, before being whisked back home by a chauffeured black Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedan.

After the car drops him off and leaves, Zetsche sneaks into the double garage, only to emerge at the wheel of a flaming-orange open-top BMW i8 sports car to roar off his compound. The caption: Free at Last.

The clip ends with a note of gratitude, saying “Thank you, Dieter Zetsche, for so many years of inspiring competition,” followed by the BMW emblem and the carmaker’s slogan: Sheer Driving Pleasure.

The lighthearted display of humor on the part of Daimler’s fiercest rival highlights how the two carmakers have embraced a more cooperative approach of late, culminating in a joint car-sharing business and a pledge to work on autonomous cars.

Both companies, like much of the industry, are bound together by the same challenges: the emergence of self-driving and electric rivals, new competitors like Tesla Inc., a simmering trade war with the U.S. and changing consumer tastes on owning cars in favor of sharing them.

Zetsche is stepping down at the annual general meeting today, and will be succeeded by Ola Kaellenius.

To contact the reporter on this story: Benedikt Kammel in Berlin at bkammel@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Benedikt Kammel at bkammel@bloomberg.net, Elisabeth Behrmann

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