Jobs asked Apple to buy NeXT. When they did, he explicitly refused to return as an employee. He only changed his mind laster because they were such a mess and he had an emotional commitment to Apples success, because he founded them. And at the time, he only had one other major interest, Pixar, and it was mostly run by the Pixar folks, Jobs wasn't writing or directing movies or developing animation technology for them.

Purchasing Tesla is almost certainly a hostile takeover at an insane price tag. Elon Musk has no need of money or to sell the business, his highest priority is to be able to run it without being told what to do by anyone else. Elon Musk has no emotional connection to Apple, but has a huge one to SpaceX, which he is super actively involved in all strategic planning.

Tesla would be a terrible acquisition and there isn't enough money in the world to convince Elon to let Tim Cook be his boss, and to spend his time designing phones and computers instead of rockets and electric cars.

If Apple won the takeover bid, Elon would cash out his shares and pour the money into SpaceX and new businesses, and tell Apple to kiss his ass.