Apple is In an Employee Poaching War With Tesla

Apple and Tesla are in a poaching war with both companies trying to hire away the other's employees, reports Bloomberg.

Telsa has hired at least 150 former Apple employees, according to the site. That's more employees than it's hired from any other company, including car makers. Former Apple employees now work across many areas of Tesla's 6,000 employee operation ranging from engineering to law.

Some examples include Doug Field who oversaw product design for MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iMac at Apple. He's now the VP of Tesla's vehicle program. Field said joining Tesla was "an opportunity for me and many others to pursue the dream of building the best cars in the world—while being part of one of the most innovative companies in Silicon Valley."


Others Apple employees at Tesla include Rich Heley, now vice president for product excellence; Lynn Miller, associate general counsel; Beth Loeb Davies, director of training programs; and Nick Kalayjian, a director of power electronics.

Notably, part of the reason Apple's employees have been interested in joining Tesla is because of the company's CEO Elon Musk.

Employees who have worked at Apple say their decision to join Tesla was based on its cars and its CEO. Musk has a reputation, like Steve Jobs did, for a mercurial temper and an obsessive attention to detail. A former Tesla worker who didn’t want to be named says that Musk is enamored with Apple and relishes comparisons between himself and its co-founder. Tesla, says one Silicon Valley recruiter who asked not to be named, attracts the same kind of employees that Apple does—driven, hard-charging, and drawn to a strong leader.

For its part, Apple has also been trying to hire away Tesla employees while taking steps to prevent even more of its own works from leaving. Musk says Apple has offered $250,000 signing bonuses and 60 percent salary increases to its workers.


"Apple tries very hard to recruit from Tesla," he said. "But so far they’ve actually recruited very few people."

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