When Apple employees are done at Apple and have left the company, it's highly likely that they are heading over to Tesla.
In fact, the carmaker has hired at least 150 ex-Apple employees, which is more than any other company.
"Employees who have worked at Apple say their decision to join Tesla was based on its cars and its CEO," said the Bloomberg report on the topic. "Musk has a reputation, like Steve Jobs did, for a mercurial temper and an obsessive attention to detail. A former Tesla worker who didn't want to be named says that Musk is enamored with Apple and relishes comparisons between himself and its co-founder. Tesla, says one Silicon Valley recruiter who asked not to be named, attracts the same kind of employees that Apple does -- driven, hard-charging, and drawn to a strong leader."
What makes things interesting is the fact that Apple is largely unable to poach employees from Tesla, despite offering massive $250,000 signing bonuses and 60 percent pay increases to potential employees. The people moving over to Tesla range from workers in engineering to the legal department.
The reason for all the moves? According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, it's largely because Apple's design philosophy is "relatively closely aligned" with that of Tesla. This is likely the reason that Tesla ended up with ex-Apple Mac hardware executive Doug Field in 2013.
"Until Tesla came along, I had never seriously considered leaving Apple," said Field at the time. "As the first high-tech auto company in modern history, Tesla is at least an opportunity for me and many others to pursue the dream of building the best cars in the world while being part of one of the most innovative companies in Silicon Valley."
It's also interesting that Tesla and Apple are engaging in employment competition considering the agreements that Apple has made with other Silicon Valley companies in the past. According to a lawsuit filed in 2011, Apple, Google, Adobe, Intuit and a number of other Silicon Valley companies all secretly agreed to not poach each other employees.
The relationship between Apple and Tesla is even more complicated than that. Reports surfaced last year suggesting that Apple was in talks to acquire Tesla. Elon Musk did say that he had discussed things with Apple, declining to comment on exactly what he had discussed. He also mentioned that he had no desire to sell his company.
