Musk’s statement was in response to an analyst asking if the company was worried that Apple could somehow threaten Tesla’s business model, in which Musk replied by saying, “I actually hope Apple gets into the car business, that would be great.” So why is Musk so relaxed about this? As it turns out part of his confidence is the fact that Tesla appears to be hiring more Apple employees than Apple is Tesla employees.
You might recall that for a brief spell there was a bit of poaching between the two companies. However it looks like Tesla appears to be more attractive for the most part as Musk claims that his company has managed to woo five times as many engineers away from Apple than Apple has trying to steal Tesla’s employees.
In the meantime it seems that for the most part, car makers do not appear to be overly worried about the rumors of an Apple car. Mercedes-Benz is one of them, although the former CEO of GM did give Apple some warning about jumping into the automotive industry.