Apple loses mechanical engineer responsible for original MacBook Air enclosure to Tesla

Matt Casebolt, one of Apple's key hinge designers, and the key designer of the original MacBook Air mechanical design has departed Apple, and is now working at Tesla.

Casebolt is now listed as the Senior Director of Engineering, Closures & Mechanisms at Tesla Motors on his LinkedIn profile, which was updated on Wednesday.

After obtaining a bachelor's degreee in mechanical engineering, Casebolt worked for Acorn, AMD, and Rackable Systems. He was hired at Apple in 2007, and left the company in December as a director of product design.

Casebolt is named in 52 patents, according to 9to5Mac. Patents attributed to Casebolt include spanning battery mounts, hinge clutches for computing devices, thermal management systems, and adhesive application and layering.

Products that Casebolt has worked on include the MacBook Pro with Retina Display first launched in 2012, the new Retina MacBook Pro, the current Mac mini revision, the 2013 Mac Pro, and the original MacBook Air.

Casebolt isn't the only recent high-profile departure at Apple to Tesla. On Tuesday, reports spread that the architect of Apple's Swift, Chris Lattner, left Apple to the car manufacturer. In November, Apple lost a PR specialist to the company as well.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has dismissed reports of a brain-drain away from his company, and has called Apple the "Tesla Graveyard." Musk claims that Apple frequently hires engineers that "don't make it" and have been cast-off from the auto manufacturer.

51 Comments

mazda 3s 1598 comments · 16 Years

About 7 years ago

Maybe he can fix those Falcon Wing doors on the Model X :)

macxpress 5913 comments · 16 Years

I don't really get why these people are leaving for Tesla. The vehicles may be interesting, but the company isn't making any money from what I see. Their production sucks, their quality isn't that great. Other than it being electric and having a decent range these cars don't appeal to me at all.

I guess maybe they're tired of working on the same ole thing and I get that. Or, maybe Apple internally isn't what it used to be so they're getting frustrated and leaving. I don't believe its a money issue.

rogifan_new 4297 comments · 9 Years

The fact that Apple is losing employees to Tesla makes me think Project Titan has really been scaled back.

williamh 1048 comments · 13 Years

AppleInsider said:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has dismissed reports of a brain-drain away from his company, and has called Apple the "Tesla Graveyard." Musk claims that Apple frequently hires engineers that "don't make it" an have been cast-off from the auto manufacturer.

I'm afraid Musk may be right. Jobs wasn't perfect but he was very competitive and took things personally. I think he'd try to hire the best Tesla people just to win. Musk isn't just trying to make money, he's playing to win. Is Apple in the game? I love Apple stuff but I sold about 30% of my position yesterday.

maciekskontakt 1168 comments · 15 Years

williamh said:

AppleInsider said:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has dismissed reports of a brain-drain away from his company, and has called Apple the "Tesla Graveyard." Musk claims that Apple frequently hires engineers that "don't make it" an have been cast-off from the auto manufacturer.

I'm afraid Musk may be right. Jobs wasn't perfect but he was very competitive and took things personally. I think he'd try to hire the best Tesla people just to win. Musk isn't just trying to make money, he's playing to win. Is Apple in the game? I love Apple stuff but I sold about 30% of my position yesterday.

Win what? Any trophy in it? It is just a profit business. You can be enterprenour at best - noting else. Some people seem to lose basic understanding and bring some slogans and create useless philosophies.