Tesla Motors is reportedly planning to hire another 4,500 workers in California alone in the next four years, in the face of impending competition from companies like Apple and Google — particularly in the realm of self-driving cars.
Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter on Friday to conduct a bit of damage control after making seemingly disparaging comments about Apple's automotive ambitions and hiring practices.
The number of Tesla employees leaving the electric carmaker for positions in Apple's own vehicle group is beginning to affect Tesla's future product roadmap, AppleInsider has learned.
In recent weeks Apple has continued to hire more people likely working on Project Titan, its secretive automotive effort, profiles discovered on LinkedIn suggest.
The alleged hiring war between Apple and Tesla continues behind the scenes, with one of the electric carmaker's top engineers switching sides and joining Apple, presumably to bolster its rumored automotive project.
Apple now lists every major carmaker as a "committed partner" for CarPlay, including every company that produces more than a million cars per year—with the notable exception of China's state owned, "big four" vehicle producers (and those manufacturers largely sell models in joint ventures with Apple's CarPlay partners).
One of the top designers in the world and the leader in electric car technology were spotted engrossed in private conversation this past Sunday at an exclusive Academy Awards afterparty, amidst a flurry of rumors surrounding Apple's rumored plans to build its own electric, autonomous car.
Apple is supposedly working on a vehicle-related project that is "too exciting to pass up" for potential hires, according to a new report, and is said to have employees from electric carmaker Tesla "jumping ship" in order to take part.
According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Apple has made a major push to recruit talent from the electric carmaker, offering massive bonuses and significant salary bumps for those willing to come to work in Cupertino.
Silicon Valley carmaker Tesla is conspicuously absent from the consortium of automotive manufacturers that have pledged support for Apple's CarPlay initiative, an omission made more glaring — and puzzling — by recent news of high-level talks between the two companies.
With word recently leaking that high ranking officials from Apple and Tesla have met, observers have been whipped up into a frenzy about what the two parties, from two very different industries, could have discussed. But there is one major tech component that is especially crucial to both Tesla and Apple: Batteries.
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Roger Fingas
Mikey Campbell
AppleInsider Staff
Neil Hughes
Daniel Eran Dilger
Shane Cole
