Summary The opportunistic human pathogen Acinetobacter baumannii can grow with carnitine but its metabolism, regulation and role in virulence remained elusive. Recently, we identified a carnitine transporter encoded by a gene closely associated with potential carnitine degradation genes. Among those is a gene coding for a putative d‐malate dehydrogenase (Mdh). Deletion of the mdh gene led to a loss of growth with carnitine but not l‐malate; growth with d‐malate was strongly reduced. Therefore, it is hypothesized that d‐malate is formed during carnitine oxidation and further oxidized to CO2 and pyruvate and, that not, as previously suggested, l‐malate is the product and funnelled directly into the TCA cycle. Mutant analyses revealed that the hydrolase in this cluster funnels acetylcarnitine into the degradation pathway by deacetylation. A transcriptional regulator CarR bound in a concentration‐dependent manner to the intergenic region between the mdh gene, the first gene of the carnitine catabolic operon and the carR gene in the presence and absence of carnitine. Both carnitine and d‐malate induced CarR‐dependent expression of the carnitine operon. Infection studies with Galleria mellonella larvae demonstrated a strong increase in virulence by addition of carnitine indicating that carnitine degradation plays a pivotal role in virulence of A. baumannii.