Apple's move into auto seems to have been about recruiting. For a brief time some of the most talented young engineers were favoring Tesla over Apple because the mission was more interesting.
Just so I'm clear: you're positing that Apple affected an interest in autonomous cars so that they could get engineers away from Tesla to work at Apple [on a project which Apple didn't care about or envisage launching]?
Has this stopped?
Yes. People are starting to realize how brutal it can be working for tesla.