A former Tesla employee weighs in on Elon Musk's slam that Apple only hires its worst engineers
REUTERS/Danny MoloshokTesla CEO Elon Musk
The rivalry between Tesla Motors and Apple reached a new level this week after Tesla CEO Elon Musk ridiculed Apple for hiring all the engineers that his company fired.Now a former Tesla employee is joining the fray, arguing that Musk and Tesla are on a noble mission rather than simply offering workers a "sexy company."
Victoria Ernestine, who purports to have worked full-time for Tesla during college, took to Quora to provide more context for Musk's comment, noting that her comments were intended to be less of a "hate message" towards Apple as they might appear.
The comments follow Musk's anti-Apple broadside earlier this week.
"We always jokingly call Apple the 'Tesla Graveyard,'" Musk told German newspaper Handelsblatt. "If you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I'm not kidding." Apple is reportedly working on an electric car, which could present a big threat to Telsa.
Ernestine notes that while she worked at Tesla, an Apple recruiter approached her about a "much more lucrative position" with a better title. Ernestine says that the reason why she declined the positon had to do with Tesla's mission statement.
The company vows to "accelerate the advent of sustainable transport," and she writes that employees feel really loyal and committed to that proclamation. Working for Musk at Tesla is notoriously tough - employees are expected to show extreme hustle while putting in crazy hours - but people join anway, because of the grand mission statement. She believes that when Musk calls Apple "Tesla's Graveyard" it's because he believes that anyone would leave because of better pay means they shouldn't have been part of the team to begin with.
By comparison, Apple's mission statement is a bit less inspiring:
Here's the key part of Ernestine's response (emphasis ours):
You can read her entire Quora post here.
(Business Insider wasn't able to find a LinkedIn profile or contact Victoria Ernestine to confirm she worked at Tesla, though she has written several other posts about the company and its products).