Elon Musk says he doesn’t know what Apple is doing with cars

Elon Musk doesn't seem to think there’s a reason to be too concerned with Apple’s purported plans for an autonomous car.

On Tesla’s quarterly earnings call, an investor asked whether Musk would consider Apple a partner or a competitor on self-driving cars, to which he responded there's no indication that the company was looking to enter the space.

“I don’t know what they're doing on the car front,” he said. “It’s not clear.”

Musk, who didn’t say much on the topic, said he did, however, have an iPhone.

“It’s a cool company,” he said.

Apple, which reportedly refocused its secret autonomous-car plans, recently acquired a self-driving permit for testing and deployment from the California DMV. It's highly unlikely that Apple would set off to build the car itself — it’s plausible that the company will focus primarily on the software or brains behind the autonomous system.

That means Apple will likely need an automaker partner.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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