Apple and Tesla have been aggressively stealing employees from each other for months, and while Tesla has been winning for the most part, Apple managed to secure one of Tesla’s senior engineers earlier this week. Apparently the company is working on a “secret project” that isn’t really a secret since we’re all 99.99% positive that the company is working on a fully-electric self-driving car, which is exactly what the engineers that Apple is stealing from Tesla specialize in.
Consumer electronics company Apple Inc has hired a senior engineer from electric car maker Tesla Motors Inc, according to a LinkedIn posting, as part of Apple’s effort to build a team of experts in automated driving. A LinkedIn profile for Jamie Carlson shows that he has left Tesla and moved to Apple. At least six others with experience developing self-driving technology and systems have joined Apple, according to their LinkedIn profiles. Attempts to reach all seven people were unsuccessful and Apple declined to comment. Sources have said that Apple is developing a car and studying self-driving technology, but it is unclear if the iPhone maker is designing a vehicle that could drive itself. Since January, Apple has hired Megan McClain, a former Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) engineer with expertise in automated driving, and Vinay Palakkode, a graduate researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, a hub of automated driving research.
