Steve Jobs once told Oracle founder Larry Ellison to not buy Apple

Larry Ellison recalled how Steve Jobs rejected his plan to buy Apple in the 1990s, telling him that making more money was not the goal. Speaking at the University of Southern California's 2016 commencement ceremony, Oracle founder Larry Ellison said he had arranged financing to acquire Apple, which was then valued at about $5 billion. But Apple founder Steve Jobs, who was no longer with the company after losing a bitter power struggle with CEO John Sculley and the company's board of directors, chose to return to Apple through its acquisition of NeXT. Jobs insisted that he wanted to lead the company from what he called the "moral high ground" rather than through a takeover that could benefit him financially.When Larry Ellison wanted to buy AppleDuring his speech, Ellison said Apple was struggling at the time and his solution was straightforward. "My idea was simple. Buy Apple," he said.