Steve Jobs scrambled to hide his Porsche 911 from billionaire as he feared it would cost him a $20,000,000 deal
Published on Feb 23, 2026 at 3:08 PM (UTC+4)
by Alessandro Renesis
Last updated on Feb 23, 2026 at 3:09 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Emma Matthews
Steve Jobs once had to hastily hide his Porsche 911 because that could’ve been a potential deal-breaker.
Most people may be familiar with Jobs’ passion for Porsche and his habit of replacing his car every six months.
But this is an episode that happened before that era.
In fact, it happened during Jobs’ brief – forced – hiatus from Apple.
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Why Steve Jobs decided to hide his Porsches ahead of an important meeting
In the 1980s, Jobs was ousted by Apple and essentially forced to resign.
He decided to launch NeXT, another tech company, where he worked for about 10 years.
Jobs was not a poor man back then, and his obsession with Porsche was well-known, but NeXT was still essentially a startup, which means Jobs was constantly scrambling to find funding.
Especially in the first few years.
Back then, Jobs apparently owned a Porsche 911 Turbo, and his colleague Randy Adams also owned the same car.
One day, self-made billionaire Ross Perot was on his way to NeXT for a conversation about funding, and Jobs realized it wouldn’t have been a good look to ‘beg’ for money while having a couple of Porsches parked outside.
We don’t know how things would’ve gone had Jobs not decided to hide the Porsches, but we do know that his strategy worked: Perot ended up investing $20 million in NeXT.
Fast-forward to 1997, and Apple bought NeXT for $400 million, bringing Jobs back into the ‘family’.
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The ‘other’ Porsche story involving Jobs
While most people may not know about NeXT, Jobs’ ‘six-month rule‘ when it came to his personal car is public knowledge at this point.
For years, Steve Jobs famously replaced his Porsche 911 every six months to avoid having to put a license plate on it.
He did the same with the Mercedes-AMG he bought to replace the Porsche.
He was able to get away with it thanks to a little-known loophole that allowed car owners to drive a car without a license plate for up to six months.
By replacing the old – leased – car with a new one, he created an infinite loop whereby he never really had to put a license plate on the car.
That’s no longer possible, mind you, because that law no longer exists.
After beginning his automotive writing career at DriveTribe, Alessandro has been with Supercar Blondie since the launch of the website in 2022. In fact, he penned the very first article published on supercarblondie.com. He’s covered subjects from cars to aircraft, watches, and luxury yachts - and even crypto. He can largely be found heading up the site’s new-supercar and SBX coverage and being the first to bring our readers the news that they’re hungry for.
