Is Ford Using A Word Created By Elon Musk In Latest Advertising Campaign?

Automotive giant Ford Motor Company F is using a word associated with electric vehicles in new advertisements for its vehicles. The word may have been created by the CEO of a rival company.

What Happened: A traditional vehicle has an internal combustion engine located under the hood of the car. Electric vehicles typically don’t have anything under the hood of the car, which led to the coining of a new automotive concept, the “frunk.”

Ford launched a new advertising campaign called “What’s In the Frunk?” highlighting the frunks of its Mustang Mach-E and F-150 Lightning.

Ford has more than 200,000 reservations for the F-150 Lighting and is boosting production targets for the electric pickup truck due to demand.

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Why It’s Important: It's Tesla Inc TSLA and CEO Elon Musk who are credited with first using the term frunk to describe the front trunk of a vehicle. No official claim on who was first has been made, but Tesla certainly used the term prior to Ford ever using it.

Early Tesla Model S vehicles featured huge frunks that could easily fit multiple people inside.

Tesla doesn’t own a copyright on the term, but might not be happy to see Ford use the term in an attempt to grow its electric vehicle sales.

Right now the advertising campaign is being used by Ford on YouTube and across social media. It has not announced television commercials for the new push. Tesla famously does not spend money on advertising, instead relying on strong word-of-mouth and returning customers.

Some will also remember the famous “Floki Frunkpuppy,” an October 2021 tweet of Musk’s dog inside the frunk of a Tesla vehicle.

Photo: Courtesy Ford