When Apple was nearing bankruptcy after the dot com bust, they didn't take money from anybody. Their new product strategy (smartphones) turned them around and made them the largest captialized public company on Earth.  They could've used money from other big wigs in the tech industry, but they engineered their way out of the abyss.

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The timing of Microsoft's cash infusion was not AFTER Apple had developed iPods and was well BEFORE the dot com bust. It was just after Jobs returned to Apple after having sold his company NeXT's OS to Apple. Yes, it was partly to make MS look less of a monopolist, but Gates always had a soft spot for the Mac. 

Ironically (and this is my opinion), the DOJ's utter focus on Microsoft at this time let Adobe slip through the cracks when it did things that were completely anti-competitive and monopolistic - such as buying the company that then owned the only vector graphics competitor (to Adobe Illustrator) - Freehand. They were allowed to buy it and then killed it off. Thanks to Microsoft.