Tech giant Apple's recent aggressive recruitment drive, especially towards auto experts, has squashed an electric motorcycle startup into bankruptcy.
Electric motorcycle startup Mission Motors filed bankruptcy in September. The company has ceased operations in May after Apple successfully lured some of its key employees into working with its own auto project. Aside from losing some of its key employees, business analysts also pointed to Mission Motors' lack of funding as one of the reason of the company's closure.
Mission Motors former CEO Derek Kaufman told Reuters, "Mission had a great group of engineers, specifically electric drive expertise. Apple knew that - they wanted it, and they went and got it."
Before Mission Motors shut down its operation in May, the company is a prominent electric motorcycle manufacturer and developer. The company is also known to supply components to electric vehicle manufacturers. Additionally, Mission Motors is known as the Tesla of electric bikes.
This is not the first time Apple has lured talents from other companies. Tesla has fell victim to this practice after the Cupertino-based company successfully lured some of its key engineers. The poaching of talent dealt a heavy blow into Tesla's internal product development.
Apple has never publicly acknowledged its plans of building its own electric car. Despite this fact, the company has been into a recruitment frenzy that has lured auto experts and engineers out of companies like Mercedes-Benz and Ford.
According to Apple Insider, Apple was able to recruit key employees from electric vehicle battery manufacturer A123 Systems in February. A123 Systems sued Apple over illegal poaching after the former was forced to shut down several of its projects when its engineers transferred to Apple.