Tesla CEO Elon Musk denies hating Apple
Technically Incorrect: Tesla's CEO tries to set the record straight after being quoted as saying that Apple hires the automaker's engineering castoffs and the Apple Watch isn't all that.
Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.
When you're a famous CEO, you end up giving so many interviews that you might forget what you've said in them all.
You might also give interviews on particular days when you're in particular moods. This can lead to particular articles being published that you particularly regret.
So it is, perhaps, with an interview in which Tesla CEO Elon Musk gave to Germany's Handelsblatt. In it, he suggested -- jokingly?-- that the Cupertino, California, tech titan hires Tesla's engineering castoffs.
"Did you ever take a look at the Apple Watch? No, seriously," he said of Apple's alleged foray into cars. "It's good that Apple is moving and investing in this direction. But cars are very complex compared to phones or smartwatches."
Some wondered whether Apple and Tesla had endured a falling out. It had once been rumored that the two companies might come together.
Thankfully, Musk took to Twitter on Friday to dismiss the very notion that he and Apple weren't BFFs.
"Yo, I don't hate Apple," he first tweeted. "It's a great company with a lot of talented people. I love their products and I'm glad they're doing an EV."
Those of punctilious mien might suggest that Apple's "talented people" still just weren't talented enough to work for Tesla. They might also muse that Musk seems to know definitively that Apple is making an electronic vehicle. Might that be because the alleged castoffs from Tesla who now work at Apple have told him?
Musk followed up with another tweet addressing his views on the Watch. "Regarding the watch, Jony & his team created a beautiful design, but the functionality isn't compelling yet. By version 3, it will be."
Translation: Version 2 will still be an inadequate lump of beautiful design.
Commenters on Musk's tweets weren't all amused. Someone called Joe Zou suggested that Tesla's CEO was merely jealous that the Apple Watch made more profit in three months than Tesla will in 2015.
However, my favorite act of pure opportunism came from Henry Levak.
He offered: "Can I send you a Pebble Time Steel in the meantime? :)" Levak is the director of product at Pebble.