This is What Apple’s Tim Cook Thinks about Elon Musk and Tesla

It’s been rumors and rumors that tech giant Apple is also working on autonomous vehicles and now the rumors may finally be confirmed true.

CNBC had recently reported that Apple was close to a deal with Hyundai-Kia to make Apple branded autonomous vehicles but the automakers denied they were in such talks.

This week in a “Sway” podcast interview with Kara Swisher, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has discussed what the company may actually be doing in the autonomous vehicle space.

“The autonomy itself is a core technology, in my view. If you sort of step back, the car, in a lot of ways, is a robot. An autonomous car is a robot. And so there’s lots of things you can do with autonomy. And we’ll see what Apple does,” Cook said.

“We investigate so many things internally. Many of them never see the light of day. I’m not saying that one will not,” Cook added.

When asked however if Apple was working on a car itself or the technology within a car, Cook declined to comment.

“We love to integrate hardware, software, and services, and find the intersection points of those because we think that’s where the magic occurs. And so that’s what we love to do. And we love to own the primary technology that’s around that,” he answered.

If Apple were to make an autonomous vehicle, it would put the company against Tesla, an electric vehicle leader who is rolling out its own self-driving features.

Apple had even brought Tesla’s senior vice president of engineering to the company back in 2018, as well as other former Tesla employees later on.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in 2020 that he had tried to start talks to sell the company to Apple, but Cook declined to take a meeting.

“You know, I’ve never spoken to Elon, although I have great admiration and respect for the company he’s built. I think Tesla has done an unbelievable job of not only establishing the lead, but keeping the lead for such a long period of time in the EV space. So I have great appreciation for them,” Cook said in the podcast interview.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.