This comes from the "it just gets weirder every day" department. Only one month after a Fortune article where he promised to buy Apple if Steve Jobs agreed to run it, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison told the San Jose Mercury News today that he might get an investment group together and actually buy the besieged company anyway. He will decide over the next few weeks whether he will actually go ahead with these plans: if Apple's major investors go for it, Ellison will try and buy the company.
Ellison is a good friend with Steve Jobs, who voiced displeasure at Ellison's earlier outburst about buying Apple. Ellison now maintains that the new Apple would not necessarily be run by Jobs but that he and Jobs would sit on the board of directors together. He also mentioned that any takeover would be a private endeavor and would not involve Oracle.
Were Ellison able to take control of Apple, he would immediately fire current CEO Gil Amelio and the rest of the executive staff. Somewhat humorously, Apple stock inched up $1.00 when news of the possible takeover was announced. In a way, the Ellison/Apple match up could be just what the company needs: Ellison is perhaps the most anti-Microsoft person on the planet.
Gil Amelio termed the possibility of billionaire Ellison buying the company "rubbish" and said that Steve Jobs has assured him that he is not interested in running Apple. "We're not entertaining any bids \[for the company\]," he said
