According to the biography, a few years ago Musk had approached Apple to try and sell them the company at what he says is 1/10th of the value of Tesla today. However, it seems that Apple’s CEO Tim Cook wasn’t interested at all and did not even take the meeting. Fast forward to today, it seems that maybe Cook should have at least entertained the idea.
After all, Tesla does have the know-how when it comes to building cars, plus they have all the facilities and staff necessary to help make that happen, plus their aesthetics seem to fit right at home with Apple. It is unclear why Apple did not even entertain the idea of acquiring Tesla. Perhaps the company wasn’t sure about their automotive plans back then, or maybe they figured that it could be cheaper to just do it themselves.
The book also revealed that Musk and Alphabet’s Larry Page had a deal where Alphabet would acquire Tesla, but that deal fell through and never came to pass. It would have been interesting had Apple actually acquired Tesla, but we guess maybe things happen for a reason.