Apple has huge offshore cash reserves. Investing (or acquiring) an offshore company makes sense for them.
There are some speculations[1] about Apple buying Disney. I do not think that will be possible without a major tax break.
The Apple-Disney fantasy has been peddled around for years. It crops back up every couple of years, when some analyst or business writer dusts it off for attention.
The first time I heard this was back in 1999 and the reason they were merging was because the bite out of the apple and the "3" in the G3 logo looked like a sideways Mickey head: http://i.imgur.com/YaUWcXM.jpg
This idea made more sense when Jobs was leading Apple. He had significant shares in Disney due to his Pixar holdings, and at the time there was cross-board membership between the two companies.
Of course maybe that was a good reason for them never to merge while still coordinating strategically.
There was one about Apple buying Twitter that I enjoyed reading. I wish they would either do that or a similar acquisition, it would put their foot into the cloud (outside of iCloud) in a way that might be interesting.
I honestly believe that if Apple and Tesla were to be come one, it wouldn't bring Apple up, it would take Tesla down.
With no visionary at the helm, Apples reputation for readily usable tech seems to be decreasing while Tesla has been advancing their own technology at a steady pace.
I hope this never happens.
If you have another view on how things would improve if they did merge, I'd love to hear it.
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/rbc-analysts-speculate-apple-...