Is Tesla Winning the Employee Poaching War against Apple?

Tesla interior

Tesla has hired away more than 150 employees from Apple, according to a report from Bloomberg Business. This is the highest number of employees from one company.

The company has hired at least 150 former Apple employees, more than from any other company, even carmakers. The former Apple staffers work in many areas of the 6,000-employee automaker, including engineering and law. “From a design philosophy, [Apple] is relatively closely aligned,” says Musk, Tesla’s co-founder and chief executive officer.

Those who joined Tesla say that their decision was based on its cars and CEO: Elon Musk has a reputation for having a “mercurial temper and an obsessive attention to detail”, just as Steve Jobs did. According to Silicon Valley recruiters, Tesla attracts the same kind of employees as Apple: “driven, hard-charging, and drawn to a strong leader.”

Actually, Tesla has been heavily influenced by Apple. First, the cars: Just consider the 17-inch touchscreen that controls most functions, from opening the panoramic roof to turning on the air conditioning, and has Internet access. Secondly, the stores also wear Apple’s stamp, which, by the way, was inevitable, since they were created by former Apple employees.

While Tesla has been successful in hiring away Apple employees, the iPhone maker’s employee poaching didn’t have the “desired” success, despite its offering $250,000 signing bonuses and 60% salary increases, Musk says.

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