Apple has brought in one of its most highly regarded former executives to head up its secret automobile project, The Wall Street Journal reports. Bob Mansfield, who joined Apple in 1999 and was a top executive under Steve Jobs, lead the development of some of Apple’s biggest products, including the MacBook Air, iMac and iPad.
After announcing his retirement in 2012 only to reverse course and stay with Apple working “on future products” just 2 months later, Mansfield moved from his post heading the company’s hardware engineering teams to lead a new group that later produced the Apple Watch. Mansfield made another public exit from Apple’s executive team in 2013, but earlier this month employees at the company began noticing all of the senior managers on the Project Titan car project were now listed as reporting to Mansfield.
Neither Apple nor Mansfield responded to requests for comment about the move.
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