diff --git a/pkg/controller/revision/ela_autoscaler.go b/pkg/controller/revision/ela_autoscaler.go
index 81e7ce93277b..e7cba1f4cbbf 100644
--- a/pkg/controller/revision/ela_autoscaler.go
+++ b/pkg/controller/revision/ela_autoscaler.go
@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ func MakeElaAutoscalerDeployment(rev *v1alpha1.Revision, autoscalerImage string)
 	}
 
 	annotations := MakeElaResourceAnnotations(rev)
-	annotations[sidecarIstioInjectAnnotation] = "false"
+	annotations[sidecarIstioInjectAnnotation] = "true"
 
 	replicas := int32(1)
 
diff --git a/pkg/controller/revision/revision_test.go b/pkg/controller/revision/revision_test.go
index 38aa7cf63820..93c73556c91a 100644
--- a/pkg/controller/revision/revision_test.go
+++ b/pkg/controller/revision/revision_test.go
@@ -502,7 +502,7 @@ func TestCreateRevCreatesStuff(t *testing.T) {
 	)
 	expectedAutoscalerPodSpecAnnotations := sumMaps(
 		rev.Annotations,
-		map[string]string{"sidecar.istio.io/inject": "false"},
+		map[string]string{"sidecar.istio.io/inject": "true"},
 	)
 
 	asDeployment, err := kubeClient.AppsV1().Deployments(AutoscalerNamespace).Get(expectedAutoscalerName, metav1.GetOptions{})