Tesla Co-Founder JB Straubel: Apple ‘Absolutely’ Could Manufacture iPhones in USA

In a recent interview, Tesla co-founder and former chief technical officer JB Straubel explained why Apple isn’t building its iPhones in the United States even though he believes they “absolutely” could.

9t05Mac reports that during a interview on the podcast “This Week in Startups,” Tesla co-founder and former chief technical officer JB Straubele explained why he believes Apple does not manufacture its iPhones in the United States despite believing that they are capable of doing so.

Calacanis asked Satraubel during the interview: “Could iPhones be made here? Like, just straight up, like you guys built cars here, people were like ‘that’s impossible,’ you did it. Like could iPhones and just like let’s say smartphones be manufactured here and what would they cost an extra hundred bucks or something?”

Straubel stated that he believes that Apple and other manufacturers could  “absolutely build complicated things” in the U.S. but further explained why he believes China has taken the lead over the United States in manufacturing in the past few decades. Part of which Straubel says is because companies like Apple “didn’t try.”

Straubel told Calacanis:

I think, you know, we can absolutely build complicated things in the United States. I think part of it is we didn’t try. And we made some strategic decisions that it wasn’t a heads-up competition in some cases. You know, certainly, there’s talent here, there’s smart people, I’d say really a lot of innovation and creativity especially around automation and factory software and the way to improve this, you know in quick cycles.

You know, I’m not saying this is an easy competition. I mean, China is incredibly entrepreneurial and they are working really really hard. You know I think people can’t take that for granted and you can’t understand maybe without really being there and going there, how intense and how much work they put into this, in succeeding.

But we can compete, we absolutely can. I’m not willing to throw my hands up and give up and say well we’re too successful or lazy or something. I’d move to a different country if that were the case.

Listen to the discussion at around 1hr and 9 minutes into the podcast here:

Read more 9to5Mac here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com