Elon Musk has hit out at Apple’s rumored electric car project, saying that it’s filling its ranks with second rank people — who Tesla has already tried out and then gotten rid of.
“They have hired people we’ve fired,” Musk told German newspaper Handelsblatt. “We always jokingly call Apple the ‘Tesla Graveyard.’ If you don’t make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I’m not kidding.”
Autonomous weapons that have the power to track and kill targets with Terminator-like efficiency aren’t just a Hollywood fantasy anymore.
Steve Wozniak, Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and hundreds of AI and robotics researchers say the technology to build autonomous weapons that select and engage targets without human intervention is feasible within years, not decades. And we need to ban it now.
Apple should buy Tesla from Elon Musk — or so thinks Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, speaking in a recent interview with Bloomberg Radio.
“The big thing they could buy that I would be impressed with is Tesla,” Munster said, referring to how Apple could spend its $203 billion in cash. “To me, when you think about that absurd amount of cash, you have to go after opportunities, and I think automotive fits within that camp.”
Apple head Tim Cook has donated 50,000 of his shares in the company to an undisclosed charity, according to an SEC filing Friday. The donation has a value of $6.54 million, as of this writing.
When the rocket you are about to ride has 3.9 million pounds of thrust under the seat, it’s comforting to have an exit strategy should something go wrong.
The private company SpaceX recently had a successful test of a launch abort system as it moves closer to having manned flights on its manifest.
Astronauts inside a Dragon spacecraft can be propelled a third of a mile away from the rocket in five seconds in the event of an emergency. SpaceX already has had seven successful unmanned cargo missions to the International Space Station and hopes to start carrying astronauts into space by 2017.
If Apple ever does get around to building an electric car, no-one would welcome the move more than Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
In Tesla’s Q1 earnings call yesterday, the pioneering entrepreneur behind Tesla, Space X and, most recently, revolutionary solar batteries chimed in on Apple’s reported electric car plans.
Here’s what he had to say.
You don’t have to have had your iPhone die at an inopportune time to conclude that current generation batteries kind of suck.
Unlike most of us, however, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has the resources to do something about it.
In a press conference late on Thursday, Musk unveiled Tesla Energy: a line of new 7-10 kwh lithium-ion batteries aimed at homes, companies and utilities.
Tech pioneers like Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, and Elon Musk have warned humanity of the dangers of AI for years, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says he’s finally a beliver in the doomsday scenarios.
“Computers are going to take over from humans, no question,” Woz told the Australian Financial Review in a recent interview from his US home.
The man who sparked the personal computer revolution with the invention of the Apple II says ‘the future is scary and very bad for people’ because computers will eventually get faster than us and wipe us out.
If you’re an Apple shareholder who wants the company to buy Tesla, you are not alone. At the iPhone maker’s annual shareholder meeting in Cupertino yesterday, Tim Cook dodged not one, but two questions about whether Apple has plans to buy the electric car company.
While Apple is the ultimate example of a corporation that refuses to comment on rumors or speculation, Cook could have given a flat-out “no” and that would have been the end of it.
Instead, the Apple CEO danced around the question like he had a secret to hide.
Zane Lowe, BBC DJ and future Apple employee, sat down with Kanye West today to talk about a number of subjects, including what the rapper’s amazingly innovative company will look like when it hits his projected $1 trillion valuation.
West didn’t sound too sure about the products he’ll be selling, but he pointed to some advice he got from none other than Apple design legend Jony Ive, saying innovation is basically overrated.
Silicon Valley has a lot of very bright people, but there are very few who ever reach the level of Steve Jobs. One who might come close is Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who has actually been able to use his visionary take on the future to snatch away senior execs from Apple to come and work for him.
According to a Musk employee writing on Quora, however, it’s not just employees that Elon shares in common with Apple’s late co-founder and former CEO.
Much like Jobs, Musk is described as having a ‘reality distortion field’ that helps him convince others that what they view as impossible doesn’t have to remain that way.
And it’s not always a pretty sight.
Apple is looking to hire a thought leader. While the actual job listing — blah blah blah “execution of critical sale reporting projects” blah blah blah — sounds about as exciting as a new ink cartridge, the idea of a thought leader role at a company like Apple is worth pondering.
Ever since the death of co-founder Steve Jobs, there’s been much speculation and hand-wringing over who could assume his role as Apple’s foremost visionary. Although no one can ever fill his New Balances, we’ve rounded up a short list of leaders who might kick the Cupertino company in a new direction.
Who do you think should drive Apple’s big ideas? Check out our picks in the gallery above, then nominate yours in the comments below.
Tesla’s stock soared earlier this week when rumors surfaced that Apple and Tesla executives had talks about the iPhone giant acquiring the electric car maker.
Apple considered making an iCar before inventing the iPhone, and they’ve lost prized engineers to the automaker, but it’s unclear how a merger would benefit the two companies, especially Tesla.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Elon Musk, CEO and co-founder of Telsa, confirmed the two companies have been talking about something, but fanboys shouldn’t get their hopes up on a merger happening:
Tesla Motors announced this afternoon that it has managed to snatch up Doug Field who has been serving as Apple’s Vice President of Mac Hardware Engineering for the past five years. Field is joining the Tesla as its new Vice President of Vehicle Programs and will be responsible for developing new electric vehicles for the company.
Before joining Apple in 2008 to help make the new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iMac, Field worked at Segway for nine years, but he actually started off his engineering career at Ford Motor Company. Elon Musk released the following statement regarding the company’s newest addition:
During a roundtable session at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, world-renowned entrepreneur Elon Musk gave his opinions and impressions on a number of topics. Issues ranging from sustainable energy to planet colonization were bounced off the brain of Mr. Musk. As the man behind multiple $50 billion companies shared his insight, the billion dollar question was asked: “Who will come out on top: Apple, Microsoft, Google, or Facebook?”
