Elon Musk, the CEO of electric carmaker Tesla, says that the company is least concerned about Apple's own electric car project. Musk says that the engineers who Apple poached from Tesla were not significant to the company.
Apple revolutionized the tablet and the smartphone market with the launch of its iPads and iPhones. The company is believed to be working on a project codenamed "Project Titan" that involves developing an electric car. Around 1,000 employees are said to be working on the project, some of whom are ex-Tesla employees.
Musk told Handelsblatt, a German publication, that the employees whom Apple poached from Tesla are not important to the electric car maker.
"Important engineers? They have hired people we've fired," says Musk. "We always jokingly call Apple the 'Tesla Graveyard.' If you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I'm not kidding."
A February Apple Insider report highlighted that Apple was luring Tesla engineers with high salary of up to $250,000 per year along with hefty bonuses.
"Apple tries very hard to recruit from Tesla," said Musk. "But so far they've actually recruited very few people."
When asked about Apple's ambition of developing an electric car, Musk replied that it is good for a company to foray in the automotive industry. However, cars are complex in comparison to smartphones and smartwatches.
Musk added that a carmaker cannot just approach a supplier such as Foxcomm and ask them to build a car. Apple may think that developing a car would be an important innovation for the company and introducing an iPad pro or its stylus called Apple Pencil were not significant enough.
Many other market experts share Musk's opinion about Apple developing a car.
"Apple has no experience," said Bob Lutz, a former Vice Chairman of General Motors. "There's no reason to assume Apple will do a better job than General Motors, Ford, Volkswagen, Toyota or Hyundai. I think this is going to be a gigantic money pit."
Apple has not yet revealed any plans about its own car. Apple fans as well as the automotive industry will have to wait until Apple officially announces its plans on developing a car.
