Tesla CEO Elon Musk calls Apple the 'Tesla Graveyard'
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has claimed that he did not make sarcastic comments about Apple’s initiative to manufacture electric cars.
According to Auto News, Musk had claimed in a Sept. 25 published interview with German newspaper Handelsblatt that Apple hired engineers who were fired by Tesla. He called Apple the “Tesla graveyard,” saying, “If you don’t make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I’m not kidding.”
Apple plans to manufacture an electric car by 2019 and began recruiting competent engineers at the start of this year to build an automated-driving team.
When asked about the ambitions of Apple’s electric car manufacturing, Musk ironically asked, “Did you ever take a look at the Apple Watch?” He added that making watches and iphones was completely different to manufacturing an electric automobile.
“You can’t just go to a supplier like Foxconn and say, ‘Build me a car,’” Musk said. “But for Apple, the car is the next logical thing to finally offer a significant innovation. A new pencil or bigger iPad alone were not relevant enough.”
A former Tesla employer Victoria Ernestine has since stepped forward to justify Musk's comments. Responding to his quotes on Quora, Ernestine said that an Apple recruiter had approached her with a more lucrative offer while she was at Tesla, but she denied accepting the proposal because she believed in Tesla’s mission statement, which was more influential and convincing.
She writes:
The reason is, people who work for Tesla are immersed with, not the car or the "I work for a sexy company" status, but with the meaning it carries. Tesla's mission statement, "accelerate the transition of sustainable transportation" isn't taken lightly when it comes to the dedicated employees Tesla hires. So what (I believe) Elon means is, "we hired you because you believe in our mission and are ready to dedicate your time and energy to building a better future with us"—loyalty and commitment is the key underlying message here. So when a well established employee decides to break the promise to join another tech company, such as Apple, with the promise of better pay and free time, Elon suggests that you are at fault and should not have been part of the team in the first place.
Musk, however, specified on Friday on Twitter that while it is true that Apple and Tesla may not be on the best terms, he does not hate the company.
Yo, I don't hate Apple. It's a great company with a lot of talented people. I love their products and I'm glad they're doing an EV.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 9, 2015Contact the writer at feedback@ibtimes.com.au, or let us know what you think below.
