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Apple has hired Chris Porritt, Tesla's former vice president of vehicle engineering, according to Electrek. This comes four months after Steve Zadesky, the head of Apple's rumored electric car project, reportedly left the company.
Porritt was hired by Tesla (where he was apparently very close with Elon Musk) in May of 2013 after spending 16 years at Aston Martin, where he was chief engineer. There, he oversaw projects like Aston Martin's One-77 supercar, as well as the development of the VH platform of Aston Martin cars, which included the DB9 and V12 Vantage.
Porritt could take over the rumored Apple car project
Porritt isn't the only former Tesla employee to wind up elsewhere this week — just yesterday, the self-driving tech startup Comma.ai hired Riccardo Biasinito to work on autonomous software integration. Of course, the electric and self-driving car industries have proven to be so insular in their infancy that these poachings happen often. Tesla has been known to hire Apple employees the same way that Apple is keen to taking Tesla's talent.
That said, Porritt apparently wasn't necessarily "poached." Tesla has confirmed to The Verge that Porritt left the company in September of 2015. Apple declined to comment.
Update April 19th, 12:06PM ET: Updated to include new information from Tesla.
Update April 19th, 1:45PM ET: Tesla has clarified that Porritt left the company in September 2015.
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