Yesterday, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo dismissed the company’s $10 billion acquisition rumors during a speech at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. And today, Twitter co-founder and creative director Biz Stone told NPR that “We’re not valued at $10 billion dollars.”
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Twitter is in low-level acquisition talks with Facebook and Google for a deal that would put the network at a $8 to $10 billion valuation. Stone tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross, “We’re not valued at $10 billion dollars. That’s just what people are writing in the newspapers, which unfortunately has the negative impact of my friends thinking I must have $10 billion dollars.”
Of course, the $8 billion to $10 billion are just numbers being thrown out there (perhaps by overeager bankers?). Twitter’s valuation wouldn’t change until a deal is actually done. Just last December, the company was reportedly valued at $3.7 billion during its most recent funding round.
But when Gross asked him about the acquisition rumors he responded “Twitter is not for sale. We don’t have a shingle out on our front that says ‘Twitter. For Sale.’ We’re not for sale and we haven’t been. We’re very, very interested in building an independent company. “
Phot Credit/Flickr/Casey Serin
Created in 2006, Twitter is a global real-time communications platform with 400 million monthly visitors to twitter.com, more than 200 million monthly active users around the world. We see a billion tweets every 2.5 days on every conceivable topic. World leaders, major athletes, star performers, news organizations and entertainment outlets are among the millions of active Twitter accounts through which users can truly get the pulse of the planet.
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