Apple is canceling its decade-long effort to build an electric car, according to people with knowledge of the matter, abandoning one of the most ambitious projects in the history of the company.

Apple made the disclosure internally Tuesday, surprising the nearly 2,000 employees working on the project, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the announcement wasn’t public. The decision was shared by Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch, a vice president in charge of the effort, according to the people.

The two executives told staffers that the project will begin winding down and that many employees on the car team — known as the Special Projects Group, or SPG — will be shifted to the artificial intelligence division under executive John Giannandrea. Those employees will focus on generative AI projects, an increasingly key priority for the company.

The Apple car team also has several hundred hardware engineers and car designers. It’s possible they will be able to apply for jobs on other Apple teams. There will be layoffs, but it’s unclear how many.

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Apple, based in Cupertino, California, declined to comment.

The move came as a relief to some investors, who pared declines in the stock on Tuesday. The shares gained about 0.5% to $182.01 at 2:18 p.m. in New York after Bloomberg reported the news.

Elon Musk, head of Tesla Inc., also celebrated the move. He sent a post on X with a saluting emoji.

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