Apple is reportedly laying off 614 workers after cancelling its decade-long effort to build a self-driving electric car in its first round of job cuts since the pandemic.
Apple is reportedly laying off 614 workers after cancelling its decade-long effort to build a self-driving electric car in its first round of job cuts since the pandemic.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based iPhone maker notified employees of the layoffs on March 28, with changes to take effect on May 27, according to The Wall Stret Journal, citing state records.
Though it wasn’t immediately clear which roles were being affected, the move comes about a month after Apple axed its EV ambitions in favor of focusing more on artificial intelligence.
At the time of the announcement in late February, Apple executies told the nealy 2,000 staffers working on the autonomous high-tech vehicle that the company would wind down the team workin gon the car, known internally as the Special Projects Group, or SPG.
It was unclear whether former SPG workers were based in any of Apple’s eight offices in Santa Clara, Calif., where The Journal reported the layoffs are taking place.
Some SPG workers were reportedly transferred into AI roles under executive John Giannandrea, who heads machine learning and AI strategy at Apple — which has been struggling to get up to speed with rivals like Google and Microsoft, which has a $10 billion multiyear agreement with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.
