Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal gets trolled after suggesting rupee symbol replace $ in keyboards

Ola Electric founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal and (right) the picture he shared on X.

Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal was on the receiving end of some clapback on social media after he suggested that the dollar sign on computer and laptop keyboards be replaced with a rupee symbol in India. Aggarwal was referring to the rupee being denoted by "INR" (Indian Rupee) while the USD (US Dollar) is represented by $ in keyboards.

"Maybe this has something to do with it! Wonder why the $ is not replaced with ₹ in products sold in India," he wrote on X.

Maybe this has something to do with it! Wonder why the $ is not replaced with in products sold in India pic.twitter.com/LteKrcfd9b

Bhavish Aggarwal (@bhash) August 24, 2024

The sentiment, however, was not shared by most social media users, especially after the Ola boss last week made headlines for equating himself and his business with the richest person in the world, Elon Musk, and his company Tesla. Aggarwal even suggested that Musk try some new ventures. Earlier this month, Aggarwal claimed Ola to be the world's fourth largest EV company, "outside of China". Ironically, China has the most number of EV companies in the world's top 10 by revenue or market cap.

"$ is not just a currency symbol. It is embedded in many programming language syntaxes. We write variables under this ${} in javascript. Variables are also written like this $1, $2 in bash syntax. If you want some change then start with yourself and replace the name 'OLA' with some Indian language word," wrote software developer Shivam Bhadani (@shivambhadani_).

"Patriotism and Jingoism has a very small gap... You are crossing that. Don't know whether you are doing it intentionally or unintentionally," added Veena Jain (@DrJain21).

Another X user pointed out that Aggarwal has preferred to use $ in his official presentations.

But u only used $ instead of in your presentations... Which u gave in India ... Why? pic.twitter.com/Bk41qOacZl Veena Jain (@DrJain21) August 24, 2024

Incidentally, it was at the same Ola Sankalp event that Aggarwal pitched Ola Electric as the world’s fourth-largest EV company by revenue while the fine print in the presentation clearly says “excluding China.” China is the known behemoth in the EV industry and according to a Mashable report, it has the top 3 EV manufacturers in the world with , with Chinese company BYD (short for Build Your Dreams) being significantly ahead of Tesla.