Elon Musk Says Apple Was “Relentlessly” Recruiting Tesla Engineers

like what meta is doing with AI engineers

So? It's a free market

I’d rather work for Apple any day. They are a company that stands the test of time and makes a hell of a lot of money. Tesla has declining sales and an uncertain future. If you want to win the recruiting war, pay your employees better, treat them better, and have a clear vision for how Tesla is going to reverse this trend. You can talk about the future all you want, but you have to make money to fund it.

Tesla is at least finally approaching a working AI product (FSD), while Apple just signed an agreement with Google to use Gemini for Siri.

And ?

Isn't that the free market?

I know people that have worked for both and Apple treats employees WAY better.  Tesla did a terrible job at compensation.

Seems like a win for shareholders to me… the leading model without the CapEx. They can switch models if Gemini stops leading.

These people want a “free market” for their products but not for labor.

Every company is relentlessly recruiting each other's employees within the tech, so I am not sure what his point is.

Yes and no. When I interviewed, they did offer somewhat less than others, but they also offered free stock in addition. Like $300k over 5 years if the stock stayed at the same price. And if it rose (like it did), significantly more.

Not really. The LLMs are going to be on Google's cloud. It's not going to be easy to move.

It should be take as a compliment really

https://www.reuters.com/business/google-apple-enter-into-multi-year-ai-deal-gemini-models-2026-01-12/ "Apple Intelligence ‍will continue to run on Apple devices and Private Cloud Compute, while maintaining Apple's industry-leading privacy standards," Google said on Monday, in a move to ease ​privacy concerns.

Yeah, from what I've heard, Tesla is much tougher on employees, but they pay more to compensate, especially via stock. So it's intense but you're greatly rewarded for hard work and results. That seems to attract the kind of engineers that do industry-disrupting work.

I don't think Elon ever said anything about being against recruiting from other companies. He said this as a statement of fact, not as commentary that it shouldn't exist.

Yes, and he's not against it. Where did you get the idea that he is?

Maybe listen to the interview. They were just talking about Apple's cancelled car project and how they were recruiting from Tesla.

Who said Elon doesn't want a free labor market? He literally said in this interview that he's against tariffs.

Listen to the interview if you want to know the "and". You literally just read a headline and you're wondering why there's not more? lol

Maybe it's changed, but that wasn't true roughly 2018ish. Tesla relied heavily on employees being altruistic early on.

Where did you get the idea that I think he is?

I mean. If this was the most interesting thing he said in the interview that they made it a headline. Must be a boring nterview haha.

You don’t have to defend Elon on every comment.. he doesn’t know who you are

It is

But we were talking about what attracts engineers. Though equity is of course a good motivation, it's not the only one.

More like people like posting out of context quotes and snippets on Reddit and other media because it grabs attention.

I applied there from a different but similar industry in pace and automation. They didn’t pay well and I would have had to take a step back.

"...when Apple briefly tried to make an Apple Car." Context is important here. Elon did not say that Apple was relentlessly recruiting Tesla engineers this year or for any other project. He specifically said that when Apple briefly tried to make an Apple Car they tried aggressively poaching Tesla employees. Which, hasn't everyone been poaching Tesla auto engineers?!

I think apple has done a good job of building a brand, and that's what is carrying them. There have been a number of dud products like vision pro, liquid glass was a hiccup, the electric car that never materialized. They rely on other's AI efforts because they missed the boat on that one. Maybe they are building their own behind the scenes, but don't appear to be interested in competing in the space. I really don't see Apple innovating, at least Tesla has defined their direction forward

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If rather not.

And SpaceX has tried to poach several people in my industry (Cyber Security) so he can shut the hell up

I mean, a quick glance at the source should tell you why this part was the focus on their particular article

Musk says a lot of things... And having the "relentlessly" in double quotes suggests exaggeration...

I know he was trying to brag about how Tesla has the best engineer in tech, and everyone is willing to pay a premium to hire. The reality is a) recruiting each other is normal within tech, and b) Tesla simply pays shit for the same level compared with other companies (i.e., [370k in Apple, 295k in Tesla](https://www.levels.fyi/?tab=levels&compare=Apple%2CTesla)).

Meta is also doing this with AR/VR specialties

Gemini is only in the lead on benchmarks and with "normies" (ease of access in the Google suite of products). Opus is leading with amateur developers. GPT5.2 is actually leading when it comes to doing difficult tasks without flubbing up along the way or missing instructions. The latest METR findings (along with a whole bunch of other evidence) support this pretty heavily. I'm not sure why Gemini gets such good PR but constantly fails at instruction following or hallucinations. It's bizarre.

They all relentlessly recruit and then stuff them in a cubicle for nothing to do. They are essentially waging a resource war against each other. Then when whatever never materializes...massive layoffs.

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Is Apple going to make cars again?

Id remember correctly Meta put everything VR and metaverse related on hold. The only thing they are still working on are AR light wear glasses. Metaverse was a a terrible investment...

Yeah I guess I was thinking about a few years ago. Turns out if you buy the studios making fun vr games to shut them down and push your not fun “free” metaverse, you don’t make money.

translation: rats leaving the sinking ship

I guess I don't understand the point of your comment if it's not that.

I don't care if he knows who I am. I just defend the truth, whether he's involved or not.

Where did you get the idea that it's the most interesting thing from the interview? It's absolutely not.

That's true too. It's much more interesting to work on solving FSD than it is to work on iPhone 18. So they put up with the 6 day weeks and 12 hour days to make it happen.

Tesla is relentlessly making itself a terrible company to work for.

"Offering to pay employees a hire wage with better working conditions to engourage them to change jobs should be illegal": Elon Musk

Turns out that buying several acres of NVIDIA graphic chips to run the metaverse actually wasn’t such a dumb investment tho…..

What a weird way to phrase "Tesla engineers leaving in droves."

Let me rephrase my point: He's right that talent doesn't equal instant success. But he's wrong to imply Tesla was targeted for its 'pixie dust'—they were targeted simply because they pay way below the industry standard.

good, right?

He was implying that Tesla is the gold standard of tech talent by saying Apple poached its talent at a premium for its 'pixie dust.' In reality, Tesla engineers were targeted simply because Tesla paid way below the industry standard.

If people wanted to read articles they wouldn't come to Reddit. They're on Reddit to read people's comments on articles.

Literally what should be happening. Workers get to choose who they work for and for how long. Listening to cutthroat corporate sociopaths cry about unfair treatment is infuriating.

For now Meta is not in the AI game. We will see if this changes in 2026.

yea no one was asking for facebook's version of second life. But the one interview zuck did with lex freedman showed off photo realistic avatars. Maybe fully realized, it might be decent product and the tech has to start somewhere. But cartoony avatars really aren't going to impress customers.

Like Tesla did with NASA engineers.

He’s a salesman, so he sells.

So what??

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Keyword = "Was". Now they just leave on the own accord! lol :)

Right. But CEO of Google said [last week](https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/02/05/google-apple-ceos-offer-seemingly-contradictory-statements-regarding-ai-partnership) that: > "We are collaborating with Apple as their preferred cloud provider and to develop the next generation of Apple Foundation Models, based on Gemini technology." That is in direct contradiction to what Apple said earlier. Unless they consider Apple Intelligence and Siri to be two separate products.

Oh like a startup.

This is the problem with all the Mag 7. They recruit armies of engineers, most work on unimportant work & just cruise.

The working conditions at the Giga Texas factory were pretty great when I was there

It was just a topic in an interview that got brought up. He even admitted in the same interview that he does the same thing to google and meta for AI researchers/engineers.

As long as you're not a woman, poc and you don't care about cutting corners on your safety

It was happening both ways.

Uhhhhh most of leadership and people above me and my coworkers on the line were minorities. “POC” is just another way to say “colored people” imo

> by saying Apple poached its talent at a premium for its 'pixie dust.' He's saying there isn't pixie dust, at Tesla or elsewhere, you need more than just the employees to make it work.

> I mean. If this was the most interesting thing he said in the interview that they made it a headline. New to Reddit? People will quote any sentence or phrase out of an interview that gets them clicks. Context and the rest of the interview are completely irrelevant.

Honestly it feels like 2018 was a different era. Not just with Tesla but life in general.

So

Um yes that’s what it means…”People of Color”

> Tesla has faced multiple lawsuits, including one where a jury initially awarded $137 million to a Black elevator operator (later reduced) and another case that settled for $3.2 million in 2024. > Multiple lawsuits filed in 2021 by female employees at Tesla's Fremont factory alleged a "nightmarish" environment of rampant sexual harassment, including inappropriate touching and requests for sexual favors.

You mean what tech companies do to each other in a daily basis? Musk hates Apple because they didn’t buy Tesla and have too much power.

That’s Fremont, pretty sure I said Texas

Why?

Yea which is historically racist

Well yes but the reason it’s “another way to say colored people” is because our society deemed that term inappropriate and rude. “POC” was used to try and be less aggressive using passive tense. “Minority” is an even calmer approach

As shocking as this may sound but Musk lies.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

Well that pay depends upon the state, in California you have far more taxes to consider.

They are, though. They heavily use LLMs on their sites and produce their own trained models (called "llama"). I'm honestly not sure if they pivoted to OpenAI or Anthropic recently as I don't use their products, but they very much do LLM things and have a well funded AI division. They're not really competitive, though, in spite of having one of the highest funded AI programs in the world.

This is the thing, high pay means nothing if the environment is terrible. That is why many engineers at Tesla are hard to recruit, the working environment is very conducive to personal development. Apple seems to have problems in that regard depending upon the department.

This is basically Silicon Valley, everyone is constantly poaching from each other

Also Elon "We don't need no engineers, get rid of 90% of the engineers at Xitter because AI" ffs man so long gone that Elongone.

What if the truth is Elon is a con? Still about that truth?

ISNT THIS A COMMON PRACTICE IN THE SILICON VALLEY?

Using soft language is genuinely killing our country

It feels like Meta is just desperate to embrace whatever the new hype is. Metaverse, wearables, AI. They are never the first and they jump in with massive capital expenditure and no apparent cohesive strategy. They’ve wasted so much money being poor operators who just follow the newest fad.

You cannot compare Tesla AI pay with regular Tesla pay. AP/Optimus has been paying new college grads 500k+ in recent months.

The prophetism is still wild in this sub after all the dirt we hear about the guy. >A lawsuit filed by current/former Tesla employees alleges a “culture of workplace violence” at the Fremont, California factory with claims of physical fights, drug/alcohol use on the floor, sexual assaults, and bigotry. >Dozens of former Tesla employees have filed statements and complaints alleging racism and discrimination, particularly at production sites — including descriptions of slurs, offensive symbols, and perceived minimal action by HR. >Former employees have alleged arbitrary and retaliatory disciplinary systems, with many employment disputes sent into forced arbitration, limiting public court oversight. >Former employees argue they were terminated for raising concerns about sexism, harassment, and Musk’s public conduct, and SpaceX has countered they were fired for violating policies. >Multiple former SpaceX engineers have filed state lawsuits, alleging they were fired after complaining about sexual harassment and a hostile work environment, describing conduct they say mimicked or was influenced by Musk’s behavior >OSHA fined SpaceX $115,850 for multiple workplace safety violations after a crane collapse incident — including poor inspection, unsafe conditions, and uncertified operators. This is part of a pattern of safety citations the company has received. Google is your friend

>Employees at Tesla's Giga Factory Austin spoke with The Nation about the horrible things they've witnessed at the plant. Read More: https://www.jalopnik.com/sexual-harassment-racial-discrimination-and-dangerous-1851659823/ Also some amazing OSHA violations: >In August 2024, electrician Victor Joe Gomez Sr. was electrocuted and killed while inspecting electrical equipment at the Tesla Gigafactory in Austin >OSHA records show Tesla was cited and fined about $7,000 for two other workplace safety violations at the Texas plant last year, both involving violations of rules to protect workers from chemical hazards. In 2022 >The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigated and issued three “serious” safety violation citations against Tesla related to this death, each with a fine of $16,550 (totaling nearly $50,000). >OSHA found Tesla failed to provide proper personal protective equipment (PPE). >Workers were exposed to electrical hazards without proper hazard analysis, warnings, or de-energized equipment.

Or they weren’t really that targeted and came to apple on their own.

That’s a lie. You only defend Elon, nothing else, nothing more. It’s 100% of your comments.

Ohh poor rich guy .. no one wants to work for you 😢

That’s just a sign of a good job market (been a while lol).

Meta Ai exists. No one uses it… but is basically Grok. https://ai.meta.com

he didnt say that. He didnt even oppose the poaching, just said it happened.

Tesla has a miserable company culture tho

If you hate hard work, yes. The people at Tesla are attracted by the brutal grind to create incredible technology.

The Metaverse will 100% become something tangible at some point but it won't be because Meta just spends on it to make it so. Eventually, the glasses will be so light, run quiet and cool, and less bulky that it will remove that barrier. From there, it will be something like Fortnight or something else that organically grows an audience, offers the VR and then it's a hit. Whether that's 5 years or 20 years from now I don't know, but VR is awesome ignoring it's limitations. Someone will figure it out and win people over, it's probably not going to be a lizard person who society collectively hates though.

I don't disagree, in an interview zuck said this is only the beginning of the hardware. this is where it starts so that it can become the light airy glasses. but software side, we don't need virtual meetings when we have zoom or whatever. There has to be a lot more to win over average users

Apple is a successful company, Tesla is not ... congrats Apple 🍎

Metaverse was just too early.

Working on an AI for targeted ads. They're really good at it.

fucking christ they packed my IG feed full of them

At least Apple came to its senses and ultimately decided not to lose money making electric cars, unlike Tesla, although in Tesla’s case Elon is incentivized by all the government handouts that have made him the richest man in the world by having the IRS steal money from every American paycheck and redistribute it to his companies.

X went from 7k employees to 30 and is still functioning and pushing our features faster then ever, but yeah sure, there was no need to layoff anyone /s

he's on a podcast talking. that's the point.

Other than Xitter turned into a total shit ass product, this is fine. *insert fire dog*

sorry it doesn't maintain your preferred version of censoring

Huh? The platform in general is a wasteland and it basically like Facebook or AOL even, just absolute dips on there and FILLED with bots and propaganda. Like Nextdoor for chuds and vatniks and their errand boys and influencers. Real people and content left. All there is left is propaganda. It is useful in that aspect though, so is reddit, to see what propagandists are pushing. I am not into censorship, I am into quality content and quality of life, cutting Xitter out is like cutting Facebook out. You aren't going to miss the bullshit. The noise won on Xitter. Basically dead internet over there.

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It is as bad as Facebook. Enjoy it!

>Which, hasn't everyone been poaching Tesla auto engineers?! Some, not as many as you'd think. The work culture difference between any OEM and Tesla is really big. Every major OEM I know people in is a *very* process driven organization. Exception being my experience with stellantis. Tesla is... Not. For better or worse, they did incredible things for EVs in the early days but you see in them now the issues that arise when you just do whatever the vibes tell you to do. There's some brilliant people there and many of them have gone to other OEMs, but it's not like OEM recruiters are just mass emailing any Tesla employee.