Apple Reportedly Hires Scores of Tesla Engineers, Tesla Says It Has '100 Times Less Money'

Apple seems to be stepping up its hiring activities involving Tesla employees, as a new report has claimed that a large number of engineers have been lured away over the last one year. The new report, taking a broader look at the poaching war between Apple and Tesla, has claimed that at least 46 Tesla employees have moved to Apple in just 2018. Interestingly, not all the hires from Apple have arrived for the Project Titan car development effort. Several employees have also been hired for "display, optics, and battery-tech" for other Apple products. Tesla commented on the report to say Apple had 100 times more money than it, making it harder to compete in terms of salary packages.

Citing a current Tesla engineer, a CNBC report claims that Apple is apparently planning to have a tighter control over the manufacturing process. As per LinkedIn data, the report says, Apple has poached 46 people who worked at Tesla. Among the hirings, were engineering interns, Tesla Autopilot, QA, Powertrain, mechanical design, and firmware engineers. The report said that while some people were hired from Tesla, the others were dismissed or laid off.

As per Tesla employees, CNBC says that several engineers at the company experienced a large drop in morale after learning that Doug Field, who stepped down as the Senior Vice President of Engineering at Tesla last month, was leaving Tesla for Apple. Some of the employees had also added prior to Field's departure, "they saw more colleagues voluntarily leaving than they had in prior years at Tesla."

Meanwhile, Tesla has refuted that reports, saying in a statement that voluntary attrition has decreased by one-third over the last year. Further, the company noted that when it has "100 times less money than Apple," it can be hard to compete when it comes to salary packages.

"We wish them well. Tesla is the hard path. We have 100 times less money than Apple, so of course, they can afford to pay more. We are in extremely difficult battles against entrenched auto companies that make 100 times more cars than we did last year, so of course, this is very hard work," a Tesla spokesperson was quoted as saying. Other people familiar with the matter claimed that Apple pays about 1.5 times the salary for technicians, software and manufacturing engineers than Tesla does today.