Perplexity made an unsolicited 34.5 billion all-cash offer for googles chrome browser on september…
perplexity made an unsolicited 34.5 billion all-cash offer for googles chrome browser on september 11, pledging to keep the open source base intact. an ai search company worth a fraction of that wants to own the most watched distribution asset on the web.
the bid is less about buying chrome and more about forcing the conversation on how search defaults get chosen.
Context
Reuters, 12 August 2025, reports Perplexity AI made a 34.5 billion dollar unsolicited all-cash offer for Alphabet's Chrome. A cxoherald article dated 6 September 2026 also states the offer was made on 12 August 2025.
Every source read dates the bid to 12 August 2025, and no evidence of a separate offer on 11 September 2026 was found, so the note's September 11 does not match and is treated as unsupported. The pledge to keep the open source base intact was not separately confirmed beyond the earlier Reuters reading. This is the same bid as an earlier note, linked below.
Related work
- Earlier note on the same bid ↗Same bid, Reuters 12 Aug 2025.
Watch next
- Any dated Perplexity or Alphabet filing on a new offer.
Sources
Provenance
The note above is reproduced unedited from the original post, first published on Threads on 18 September 2026 at 21:18 IST. Sources are the papers and datasets the note draws on.
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