Elon Musk Reportedly Demanded to Become Apple CEO as Part of Potential Tesla Acquisition [Update: Musk Denies]

[jon3543]

Lmao, Tim Cook is a savage. Steve Jobs was very adamant to have him as next CEO before he passed, for good reason. Other CEOs would’ve either caved or reject him nicely.

Elon Musk is nothing but a tech conman. He peddles his half baked garbage to the tech nerds with deep wallets. He’s not funny at all and using 14 year old memes isn’t a personality.

“F— you” - Tim Cook lmao

Elon is a lot of things, but he's the furthest thing from a "tech conman" that I can think of.

 

[cult hero]

I could see Jobs saying F*** you to Musk, but Cook? I think he would be too polite to say that even if he wanted to. Don't get me wrong, Cook has been doing amazing things for Apple but he is different as a person in that way.

I think this sounds very much like Cook. He wouldn’t yell it. He’d just say it matter of factly and hang up like a normal call.

I’ve read some accounts of his meetings, especially when he’s serious. While he’s definitely not prone to some of the absolute bananas crazy stuff Jobs did, it sounds very much like it’d be pretty scary to be on the wrong side of him in a meeting. You cannot operate a company of that size without being ruthless.

 

[cult hero]

Elon is a lot of things, but he's the furthest thing from a "tech conman" that I can think of.

Elon is polarizing. I think it’s hard for a lot of people to grapple that a guy can be both an innovational billionaire and simultaneously a guy that gets easily bent out of shape over people talking about him on Twitter.

How he stays out of serious trouble with the SEC absolutely blows me away.

Musk is a weird dude. Jobs was a weird dude too.

 

[lostom]

Ugh. A Musk lead Apple would have been amazing. Probably would be innovating again instead of lame Cook just being a slow follower to Samsung. You cant bring back Steve Jobs but why do we have to keep settling for mediocrity with Tim Cook? They keep losing all the great talent at apple due to how bad of a CEO Tim Cook is.

Pretty sure they just posted some pretty decent quarterly figures?
he might be ok.

 

[hot-gril]

Gosh, he’s achieved so much but sometimes makes such poor decisions. What a weird dude.

Same with Jobs, who could've easily been alive now still if it weren't for some of his decisions.

 

[hot-gril]

Pretty sure they just posted some pretty decent quarterly figures?
he might be ok.

Yeah, but only shareholders care about that. I do have a little AAPL stock, and I'd still rather see them acting like they did in 2007 than see the stock go up. (Though the ARM Macs are great.)

 

[bushman4]

Maybe story is a fake.
why would Elon Musk want to insult Apple fan boys??
If it’s true than he’s only hurting himself and tesla
Don’t appreciate his snyde remarks about AAPL during earnings conference call
Elon when you have nothing good to say don’t say anything..ask mummy

 

[WLSON]

I find this story to be highly probable. Elon Musk is insane, and not in a good way. Could never view him the same after the incident with the British cave divers

You might want to read what actually happened then.

 

[WLSON]

I can’t believe how wrong you are in one long drawn out couple of paragraphs.

Don't mind him, he has Elon Musk derangement syndrome.

 

[ian87w]

Whether this was true or not, I’ll be waiting for the movie version.

 

[WLSON]

Not an argument.




View attachment 1813049View attachment 1813050View attachment 1813053

Because yours is? Let's see the groundbreaking examples you've posted:

A prototype blowing up ... incredible and unheard of.

The Boring Company is a side gig, fundamentally it's purpose is for Mars.

A crash that we don't even know if it was on autopilot or not. Even if it were I don't see what it proves: A) the fault is on the driver anyway because they have to monitor the system. B) Humans get involved in such crashes very often.

 

[mactactic]

I’d take Musk any day over bean counter Cook!! We’d have new inventive products now instead of the tech stagnation that’s infected Apple since Steve passed.

 

[lostom]

Yeah, but only shareholders care about that. I do have a little AAPL stock, and I'd still rather see them acting like they did in 2007 than see the stock go up. (Though the ARM Macs are great.)

I agree, I was merely pointing out that Apple isn't mediocre ( according to the quote I replied too), because of Tim Cook.

 

[Techwatcher]

It is worth noting, however, that during an interview with The New York Times' Kara Swisher in April, Cook said he had never spoken to Musk but has "great admiration and respect" for Tesla.

Update 2: Musk has shared another tweet explicitly denying that he and Cook have ever spoken or written to each other, reiterating his statements from months ago that he had at one point requested a meeting with Cook to discuss the possibility of Apple acquiring Tesla but that Cook refused the meeting.

I mean if both Musk and Cook deny speaking to each other then it's probably false. Though it's hilarious if it did happen and Cook said "F--- You" lmao.

Regardless, if Musk was CEO we would have macOS on iPad Pros by now and full Apple integration on Teslas. So I don't understand what some of the dissent here is.

Who cares if he shares memes not everyone needs to be a 1 dimensional vapid individual with no sense of entertainment or enjoyment. End of the day he was the world's richest person while "100% serious all the time" people will never get close. Enjoy life folks stop walking around with a stick up your a**.

 

[cocoua]

That 6% means nothing. Companies are what they are just because all the things that hapend to them, if you buy a car, taht car would change in your own way. So maybe apple would screw up tesla, who knows.

thats way it worth buying super big companies instead to replicate their busines.

 

[mikethemartian]

That doesn't make the statement made any less true. Tech companies, and Apple is a huge part of this, have really sold the consumer on disposable products. I suspect that smartphones were really THE product to usher in that mindset. It makes total business sense. The thing that irks me the most is the inability to upgrade/repair coupled with often needing dongles and hubs all while touting the environmentally friendliness of the process. Otherwise, it's just business.

I just heard about the Frameworks laptop the other day. It’s a really great example of a thin upgradeable laptop.

 

[Enlightened Doggo]

Source: Some random guy.

 

[fuchsdh]

Because many MacRumors readers are also capable of reading Musk's own words and adjacent stories about Tesla's behind closed doors decisions. People's dislike for Musk and/or Tesla doesn't come out of nowhere.

To your second point, based on my definition of innovation Tesla are not innovative as nothing they've produced has shifted any paradigm yet. Apple, like Tesla, don't necessarily have to invent everything they popularize (smart phones existed before Apple, EVs existed before Tesla) but Apple's product categories are significantly more paradigm shifting than changing the propulsion system of an otherwise identical vehicle. Apple's products are often ready-for-the-masses packaging of truly ground breaking innovations (Internet, cellular, GUI/displays, digital computing, etc.) that they didn't invent but the end result changes how society (or more generally speaking "a system") works.

Mac/personal computers = helped transition computers from specialized, shared tech for geeks and researchers into something useful for the everyday person, game changing

iPhone/smart phones = a connected multimedia creation and browsing device in your pocket, game changing product class that changed almost everything about how information is shared and absorbed in our society (for better or worse)

Tesla/EVs = exactly the same automotive experience except you plug in your car at home instead of at the gas station. Nothing about the way I live my life has changed driving one now vs. when I drove a gas car. If everyone had a Tesla tomorrow nothing about our society would fundamentally change except for electricity infrastructure issues and a bunch of gas stations shutting down. I don't think the same can be said for if everyone received a smart phone or personal computer overnight.

iPhone/smart phones = innovative, paradigm shifting.
iPhone/smart phone tech upgrades (camera, screens, speakers) = mostly not innovative, the paradigm has already shifted via the original innovation.

Personal, mass produced automobiles = innovative, paradigm shifting.
Automobile upgrades (seatbelts, airbags, turbo chargers, EV propulsion, hydrogen powered) = mostly not innovative, the paradigm has already shifted via the original innovation.

Note that the innovation is moreso attributable to the overarching category (the smart phone, the computer) rather than the specific implementation (the iPhone, the Mac). It's just that Apple happened to be there at the right time with the right implementation of the category to act as an ice breaker.

I'd say the bigger point about Musk is getting cars to electric isn't a bad thing, but the guy clearly doesn't actually care about revolutionizing much of anything. His idea of "transit of the future" is either the hyper loop, which hasn't been demonstrated to actually work and Tesla doesn't actually seem interested in pursuing seriously, or expensive underground tracks for low-occupancy cars instead of, you know, mass transit, the thing that's worked efficiently for decades.

If we actually do owe Musk for making electric cars a priority again (I'm happy to concede the possibility, although the reality of climate change was going to push this anyhow) that's a feather in his cap. But basically everything else he's doing reeks of dumb "disruption"-style tech approaches to things that don't need tech approaches. Getting internet to underserved areas would be done cheaper and faster by the old running of cables, rather than temperamental satellites that don't often work in those underserved areas and threaten to clutter the skies with more space junk. And on top of it, he's a total dick as a person.

I think Elon Musk really just seems like the poor man's Steve Jobs. He's still got people in a "reality distortion field", but his actual legacy is mostly shoddily-built cars and calling rescue workers pedophiles if they point out he doesn't know what he's talking about.

 

[cmcbhi]

Cook's real answer:
BWAHAHAHAHA....

 

[CWallace]

So the total revenue now determines if a company is doing something of value?

To be honest, why shouldn't it be? I mean if people are spending literally hundreds of billions of dollars a year on a company's products, they clearly must find significant value in them to spend that money on them rather than on other options that are significantly less expensive (and perhaps, therefore lest valuable?).

 

[pshufd]

What was he smoking?

 

[giv-as-a-ciggy-kent]

Because yours is? Let's see the groundbreaking examples you've posted:

A prototype blowing up ... incredible and unheard of.

The Boring Company is a side gig, fundamentally it's purpose is for Mars.

A crash that we don't even know if it was on autopilot or not. Even if it were I don't see what it proves: A) the fault is on the driver anyway because they have to monitor the system. B) Humans get involved in such crashes very often.

Why did you ignore the other post I made directly above it? here let me quote myself:

tbh fam Tesla cars is a huge and expensive amount of battery and that’s basically it. Their “innovation” was targeting a higher price class that enabled a **** ton of battery capacity, and making the car not look like an autistic fever dream from ikea (looking at you bmw i3).

consider the following and tell me he’s not a charlatan.

Hyperloop
Vegas loop
Dugout loop
Tesla Semi

Bunch of half baked woo woo future tech vaporware pipe dream bull-**** that if it ever does materialize is nothing like the 3D renderings that get Reddit soys moist.

I’m sure musk would have been all over “solar freaking roadways” but that retarded dweeb burnout beat him to it.

Realistically he’s a frontman for a lot of semiprivate three letter agency research but if that’s the case I don’t get why they permit the musk sideshow.

it’s not innovation, unless you call indentifyung business development opportunities or marketeering innovation. GM’s EV1 in the 90s was innovation. Chrysler’s Neon being the first car in the world 100% computer designed and prototyped was innovation.

Underground tunnels with RGB lights your electric cars drive through at a slow rate of speed that’s an order of magnitude worse than 1920s era subway technology is not innovation. Musk deserves credit for making electric cars more desirable than just an appliance, but to say that’s on the level of Jobs or really any other technological innovation since the early 1900s is laughable.

 

[giv-as-a-ciggy-kent]

To be honest, why shouldn't it be? I mean if people are spending literally hundreds of billions of dollars a year on a company's products, they clearly must find significant value in them to spend that money on them rather than on other options that are significantly less expensive (and perhaps, therefore lest valuable?).

By your logic nerve gas or cruise missile manufacturers that take in cash by the truckload are true innovators

(well they are, military technology is truly cutting edge, so I suppose you are correct)

 

[bousozoku]

Elon Musk would have been the best AND the worst thing to happen to Apple.

He is brilliant, but he also needs someone else to keep him under control.

I don't doubt that he would say something outrageous because he does it consistently. I doubt that he'd want to be in charge of Apple, though.

 

[cmaier]

Elon Musk would have been the best AND the worst thing to happen to Apple.

He is brilliant, but he also needs someone else to keep him under control.

I don't doubt that he would say something outrageous because he does it consistently. I doubt that he'd want to be in charge of Apple, though.

Apple is a company that couldn’t even put up with Scott Forstall. No way the board of directors would let Musk within a thousand feet of the place.