Apple hires a former Tesla exec who suggested Elon Musk exaggerated the power of Tesla's self-driving tech, a report says

• Apple has hired a former Tesla exec who used to work on Autopilot, sources told Bloomberg.
• Christian Moore previously said Elon Musk had overstated the power of Tesla's self-driving tech, per a report.

Apple has hired a former Tesla exec who reportedly suggested Elon Musk exaggerated the power of Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) feature, people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg.

Christian "CJ" Moore, previously Tesla's director of Autopilot, is now working on Apple's self-driving car software, the people told Bloomberg.

Moore is reporting to Stuart Bowers, per Bloomberg. Bowers had a two-year stint at Tesla as the vice president of engineering until he left in 2019, according to his LinkedIn profile. Bowers started working at Apple at the end of 2020, per Bloomberg.

At Tesla, Moore worked on the Autopilot driver assist feature for more than seven years, per his LinkedIn profile.

While working at Tesla, Moore suggested that CEO Musk had overstated the capabilities of the FSD software, according to a memo in May that was obtained by transparency portal Plainsite.

FSD, a $10,000 add-on that's currently in beta, doesn't make Teslas self-driving - instead, it adds the ability to automatically change lanes, enter and exit highways, recognize stop signs and traffic lights, and park.

Musk said in the carmaker's January earnings call that he was "highly confident the car would be able to drive itself with reliability in excess of human this year."

There are six levels of autonomous technology in vehicles, ranging from level zero, fully manual, to level five, fully autonomous.

Asked about the claims, Moore said Musk's statements about FSD capability don't "match engineering reality," according to a summary of a conversation between Moore and the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), which was included in the memo in May. "Tesla is at Level 2 currently," he said, per the memo.

Level two, which Moore referred to when talking to the DMW, means the car is semi-autonomous and needs supervision by a human driver.

Moore didn't immediately respond to Insider's earlier request for comment about his departure from Tesla.

Apple didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment about Moore's reported new role.

The iPhone manufacturer has never confirmed reports that it's making an autonomous electric car, a project known internally as "Project Titan." Reports suggest Apple has talked with car makers including Nissan and Hyundai about partnering on a vehicle.