Nothing CEO Carl Pei's subtle dig at Tim Cook after teammate joins Apple: ‘If you need more…’

May 20, 2025 05:50 PM IST

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After Nothing’s design director joined Apple, Nothing’s Carl Pei congratulated him while teasing Tim Cook about needing product help.Take a look at the post here:

After Nothing’s design director joined Apple, Nothing’s Carl Pei congratulated him while teasing Tim Cook about needing product help.

Nothing co-founder Carl Pei took a swipe at Apple CEO Tim Cook after one of his teammates decided to jump ship and join tech giant Apple. In a post on X, Mladen M Hoyss who served as the software creative director at Nothing. shared his latest career move with a sleek Apple logo and the caption: “New beginning @Apple.”

Carl Pei, founder and chief executive officer of Nothing, congratulated his ex design director in a social media post.(X/getpeid)

Hoyss’ new bio now shows him as a part of the “Apple Design Team”.

Responding to the announcement, Pei took a playful dig at Tim Cook, while congratulating his former teammate, who has been crucial in designing the sleek Nothing OS which made the startup stand out among other phone makers.

“Congrats dude, proud of you!,” Pei said, while adding, “Tim Cook let me know if you need any more product help.”

Take a look at the post here:

While Pei’s post was seen by many as lighthearted, others on social media pointed out that the message could be a subtle branding approach that tried to underplay Apple’s design capabilities while praising his own team’s skills as desirable by the tech giant.

“This shows that nothing is so good at what it does that a 4 billion company Apple prefers to “adopt” other people’s talent,” said one user. “This congratulations message looks more like a sarcastic one,” remarked another user.

Some users also compared the exchange to the infamous email sent by Apple founder Steve Jobs to Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen in 2005, in which he voiced concern about Adobe recruiting Apple employees. “I have a standing policy with our recruiters that we don’t recruit from Adobe. It seems you have a different policy. One of us must change our policy. Please let me know who,” Jobs has written.

Pei’s post came a day before the Nothing CEO announced the official launch event for its upcoming flagship phone, Nothing Phone 3. The phone will launch in July 2025, but an exact date has not been released.