The Apple Car is dead, and Elon Musk is speaking at its funeral

• Apple is reportedly scrapping its electric-car project, and Elon Musk has something to say.
• The Tesla chief posted a saluting-face emoji before acknowledging the challenges of building cars.

Apple is killing its electric-car project, and Elon Musk is here to deliver a eulogy.

The tech giant is pulling the plug on its decadelong electric-car project, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. In response to the news, the Tesla CEO posted a saluting face and cigarette emoji in an X post on Tuesday.

"The natural state of a car company is dead," Musk wrote in another post.

Many employees involved in the car project are set to be moved to the company's artificial-intelligence division, Bloomberg said, but there could be layoffs among Apple's engineers and car designers.

The iPhone maker has been working on the electric car since 2014, but the vehicle's development has been plagued by leadership changes and launch delays.

Musk, of course, is no stranger to the difficulties of producing an electric vehicle. The Tesla chief has battled funding shortages and production setbacks to get his cars made.

Even though Apple is a trillion-dollar tech behemoth, Musk said in 2015 that he wasn't threatened by its interest in the electric-car market.

"It's good that Apple is moving and investing in this direction. But cars are very complex compared to phones or smartwatches," Musk told the German newspaper Handelsblatt. "You can't just go to a supplier like Foxconn and say: 'Build me a car.'"

Musk even referred to Apple as a "Tesla graveyard" in the same interview.

"If you don't make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I'm not kidding," Musk said to Handelsblatt.

Representatives for Apple and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.