Elon Musk calls Apple a "graveyard" for fired Tesla staff

midian182

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Outspoken Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken a series of swipes at Apple in an interview with German newspaper Handelsblatt, referring to the Cupertino-based company as “Tesla’s graveyard.”

When questioned over claims that Apple has been poaching key members of Tesla’s staff to work on its rumored self-driving car project, Musk said: “Important engineers? They have hired people we’ve fired. 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.”

Musk continued his taunts against Apple when asked if he saw the company as a potentially serious competitor in the electric car market. “Did you ever take a look at the Apple Watch?” was his jokey response. He added: “No, seriously: it’s good that Apple is moving and investing in this direction. But cars are very complex compared to phones or smartwatches. You can’t just go to a supplier like Foxconn and say: ‘Build me a car.’ But for Apple, the car is the next logical thing to finally offer a significant innovation. A new pencil or a bigger iPad alone were not relevant enough.”

In 2014, Musk confirmed that Tesla and Apple had taken part in possible acquisition talks, but it ultimately led to nothing. When asked at the time if the electric vehicle company was for sale, Musk said it was “unlikely.”

Apple - which was named the world's most valuable brand for the third year running earlier this week - is said to be speeding up development of ‘Project Titan,’ its self-driving car initiative. Apple executives were reported to have met with California’s department of motor vehicles last month to discuss plans for an “autonomous vehicle.”

Tesla revealed its $132,000 Tesla Model X last week, although a lot of the attention was focused on the SUVs ‘bio-weapon defense mode.' The vehicle’s unveiling came nearly two years later than scheduled; Musk admitted that the "difficulty in engineering" some of the SUV's parts had been greater than he had originally expected.

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There's merit to what he says, designing and engineering an electric vehicle is a far cry from designing and engineering some highly overpriced and overrated electronic gizmo. Lets wait and see if Apple can pull it off.
There's been so much said and written about their venture so that if it doesn't succeed, I think a lot of Apple heads will be rolling.
 
Not to mention people are far more critical of a car than a cell phone or an Ipad.

Apple won't have all its clueless zealots in the car industry as they do buying their gadgets.
 
Not to mention people are far more critical of a car than a cell phone or an Ipad.

Apple won't have all its clueless zealots in the car industry as they do buying their gadgets.

Unfortunately I think there are more clueless car owners then Apple owner, you know people who buy Rondo's who do the speed limit in the left lane and never use their turn signal, but it's not just the Rondo, there are many makes and models of the eco-****-box, and the people buying them are as clueless as can be when they set out on the road.

Apple making cars? Unlikely, the profit margins could never be inflated enough.
 
If Apple is Tesla's graveyard, then what do they call all those Teslas that busted into flames right on public roads due to battery faults? Must have cost them a fortune to wipe those videos off youtube to stay in business. I guess everything is a go when the government's interest is at stake big time.

Either go green, or buy green, whatever it takes, or so they say. And we've seen the prices. That's not exactly a people's product, not by a long shot.
 
Every company has growing pains. Even a few lost friends alone the way. Maybe someone should pray for them, so they may be saved and find their way back home to Tesla.
 
Its true. Apple hires people not because they can do something but because they could make their sheep followers to buy the "we know what is best for you" stuff.
 
Well, if there's one thing you can say about an out of work executive, the next company they work for, won't have to pay them as much as the last company.

Which brings us to Musk's, "Super Loop Project". When last I saw that mentioned here at Techspot, it was in an article about Musk hiring out of work execs for that project. So, I guess that's a "graveyard for the unemployed" as well.

Every time Musk opens his yap, I lose more respect for him. No mean feat, considering I had little to none for him in the first place.

It comes as no surprise to me there's a high turnover at Tesla. You have a CEO, who is delusional to the point where he genuinely believes that every time he opens his mouth, the R & D is over with and the product is ready for market. He he ever brought anything to market when he claimed he could? If the answer is no, (and I certainly believer it is), then he's just a domineering windbag, with no skill of his own, save for a vivid imagination, to make anything happen. In fact, even his stupid "house battery packs" are back ordered, and he "formed a partnership with Panasonic", in that segment of his business. Which to me sounds like he needs Matsushita to yank him out of the hole his big mouth dug for him.

So, Musk is still my favorite sociopath with paranoid delusions of grandeur, with an chronic overdose of magical thinking thrown in.

As for the crux of this story, I get the picture Apple told Musk to pound sand, and this is his tantrum from the rejection.

In any case, I hate Apple corporation and virtually everything it stands for. But, you know what, when they say, "the new IPhone will be out xx/xx/xxxx, it is. Which is a whole lot more than you can say for wheelin' Elon.
 
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I freaking love this guy.

A as side note, there is one tesla charge station where I live and it's in the parking lot of the new defunct Target Canada and they have a whole, brand new, Target sized parking lot to sit in.. A small car gathering has started to grow around it. making for some interesting juxtaposition of muscle and vintage , next to cutting edge model S's

Elon is a futurist in the vein of Fuller and Tesla himself.
 
I freaking love this guy.

A as side note, there is one tesla charge station where I live and it's in the parking lot of the new defunct Target Canada and they have a whole, brand new, Target sized parking lot to sit in.. A small car gathering has started to grow around it. making for some interesting juxtaposition of muscle and vintage , next to cutting edge model S's
Right! Maybe we should bill the Model S as, "the car you can't afford, and the car Musk can barely get off the assembly line".

Elon is a futurist in the vein of Fuller and Tesla himself.
I'm going to stick with "self promoting windbag and huckster", but to each his own.

BTW, Tesla had his own failures. One was promoting DC electric power. Oddly, DC can't be transmitted very far. Thus, AC was necessary to electrify our cities. So, next time you plug in a toaster, into a wall outlet, make sure you thank Tesla for making your breakfast not happen.

Thanks for mentioning Buckminster Fuller though. I've been trying to remember that name for months. (I've been wanting to check out his flops and foibles too).
 
Just because people get fired they don't automatically become of lesser value. Maybe you and your managers are just crappy leaders who don't see real talent. Maybe it should be more like apple is "heaven" for fired Tesla employees.
 
Just because people get fired they don't automatically become of lesser value. Maybe you and your managers are just crappy leaders who don't see real talent. Maybe it should be more like apple is "heaven" for fired Tesla employees.
Tesla motors has the likelihood of being a horrible place to work. Musk thinks just because he can shoot off his mouth and claim something can be done, his employees should have finished building it the day before.

I can't honestly picture why Musk has so much to say about Apple. It's a phenomenally profitable endeavor. Erstwhile, Musk's junk companies are never doing much more than begging for tax breaks and handouts.

There hasn't been a bigger camera w****e than Elon Musk, since "the reverend" Jessie Jackson was in his prime....
 
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