Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan has been associated with car maker Hyundai since the launch of its first car in India in 1998. At an event on road safety organised by the chaebol, the actor boasted that he was the oldest and senior-most employee of the company's subsidiary in India, with an association of close to 18 years. Y K Koo, the new managing director of the company, corrected him and said he, and not the actor, was the oldest employee because he came to India a year before Khan became Hyundai's brand ambassador. Koo added, much to Khan's discomfiture, that the star had initially declined to be associated with the then relatively little-known company.