Carl Pei dons ‘Bhai’ moniker ahead of Nothing Phone 2a launch, gets Elon Musk, Perplexity CEO involved too

Ahead of the launch of Nothing Phone 2a on March 5, Nothing CEO Carl Pei gained the attention of the company’s Indian followers by launching a new ‘Bhai’ campaign. While this began as a funny exchange between one X user and Pei, the Nothing CEO then started responding to X posts with ‘Bhai’ - a Hindi-language word that translates to ‘brother’.

Carl Pei on X

Over the last few days, there have been speculations about Nothing hiring Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh as their brand ambassador. One X user asked Carl Pei about the same, to which, the Nothing CEO replied, “We want to sell more phones bhai”, which bemused the company’s Indian followers on the microblogging platform. Subsequently, another user called Pei ‘Bhai’, following which he changed his handle to ‘Carl Bhai’.

The official X account of Nothing India followed suit, changing its handle to ‘Nothing India Bhai’ while also posting, “Carl Bhai ke aage koi bol sakta hai kya, ayyy Carl Bhai”. The banter continued, with Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis also changing his handle to ‘Akis Bhai’.

Not only his fellow co-founder, but Carl Pei also got Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas involved, with the latter responding to Pei’s initial post with, “Carl Bhai, kab hamara partnership?” Pei replied, “Only if you changed your name to Aravind Bhai”, to which, Srinivas replied, “Partnership official now!”, alongside changing his X handle for a brief moment.

This banter attracted the attention of Indian users, with many requesting the integration of Perplexity on Nothing devices. One user wrote, “It’s time to leverage AI part of Bh’AI’ into nothing devices”.

The former OnePlus co-founder also enticed X chief Elon Musk into changing his handle. Pei wrote, “.@elonmusk did you really think you could build a Tesla factory in India without changing your username to Elon Bhai?”

While this is just banter, it is a great marketing tool for the company to build anticipation ahead of the launch of its latest smartphone, the Nothing Phone 2a. India has already become a good market for Nothing, with the company also establishing its manufacturing facility in Chennai, where its flagship product Nothing Phone 2 is made.

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