Elon Musk confirmed this time last year that they had been 'in conversations' with Apple. Relatively strange to see that happening, at that time.
Not so much, anymore.
Recent news about Apple and electronic vehicles first started when there were talks about a bidding war for vehicles employees between Apple and Tesla. Later on, it was revealed that Apple was also working on an electric car. MacRumors (Reuters) suggested a self-driving car, similar to the likes that Google, Uber, Tesla and other (traditional) automobile manufacturers are trying to create.
Right now it's fruitless to decipher what Apple's motivation is, in building its own self-driving car. So returning back to the topic at hand: the potential acquisition of Tesla, by Apple.
What would be the purpose of Apple acquiring Tesla? After all, Apple, in its currently form, is a consumer electronics company. Tesla doesn't necessarily fit within Apple's product line-up.
However, I think I've come up with the reason as to why they're highly interested in buying Tesla.
The brand.
It's similar to their billion dollar acquisition of Beats (by Dr. Dre).
Why would they do that? It's because Apple is highly interested in exploring new avenues, but at the same time, need to separate off their current branding with the new market that they're interested in entering.
This isn't without precedent. Claris was spun off into its own company by Apple, back in 1987. Filemaker Inc. was spun off of Claris in 1998.
Essentially, what I think, is that Apple (famous for their long-term macro view of the entire business) is looking to expand beyond consumer electronics.
Strange? Is Tim Cook the undoing (no he isn't) of Apple? After all, when Steve Jobs returned back to Apple, he killed off many side-diversions (including the Newton, a PDA which was ahead of its time).
Why would Apple embark on the old strategy, and commit the same mistakes–of spreading themselves too thinly across multiple product lines which led to the company being on the brink of disaster?
Simple.
It's a change of situation. Apple, back in 1996, was on the verge of death. It was haemorrhaging money. It had lost in the PC war to Microsoft. Its marketshare was dismal. The circumstances changed, however. Steve Jobs's return to Apple (after the acquisition of NEXT by Apple) harked the new era for the company.
Back in 2010, Apple passed Microsoft to be the second-largest US company by market capitalisation in the world. Apple, in 2015, is the most valuable public company in the world, and its recording-breaking market cap has already passed $720 billion USD. It's bigger than oil companies. Heavy industry and industrial manufacturers.
Thus, in the coming decade and beyond, Apple has both the financial stability, and capacity to invest in new markets beyond consumer electronics.
In order to not dilute (and possibly destroy) the brand of 'Apple', in the consumer electronics field, it will need to acquire a new brand.
What better brand for electric vehicles than Tesla? And what better CEO to lead this new independent (but owned by Apple, which integrates Apple's consumer tech into the cars) than Elon Musk?
Summary: The long-term goal of Apple is to branch off into new, non-consumer electronic industries. They are able to do this due to the relative financial stability of the company, along with financial capacity (significant cash holdings, not wasted on stock buybacks). The main industry that they'll be looking to enter is the electric vehicles industry (and by extension, green energy). Tesla (and Elon Musk) is the perfect fit for delivering this new expansion. Thus, Apple's acquisition of Tesla (which can be fully funded by cash) seems probable.
In unrelated news, need to find out how to manually upgrade the Ghost blog (They really need to get this feature sorted out, for self-hosted installations). Turns out Ghost added tag management support, a feature that I've been clamouring for quite a while now, which I really want to have.