Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5 billion
The unsolicited offer is higher than Perplexity’s valuation.
The unsolicited offer is higher than Perplexity’s valuation.
Well this is somehow much, much worse than Google
For those who missed it, perplexity is the one happily powering truth social's AI search with their logo front and centre
Remember your browser choices aren't that of everyone you know. Many of them will happily continue with Chrome and may end up looking at a profile of yours or something—just not using it is really not gonna cut it
Oh that’s awful. I’m non-U.S. and didn’t know.
Goshdarnit, and I was really enjoying perplexity and its relatively low hallucinations and good sourcing of information.
Yea, me too, I got a cheap pro subscription and use it often. It is a fast way to find info for me. But I guess behind the scenes they are tracking us in the worst possible way.
I did some checking around on the web and it seems that the partnership is a standard API license where Perplexity provides the technical infrastructure and Truth Social makes requests to there. The AI does contradict Trump regularly according to the Washington post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/08/10/truth-social-trump-ai-chatbot-perplexity/
So I'm not sure if this is massively wrong. Or at least, not as bad as I thought it would be.
The CEO also said in an interview that he would use Chrome to mine endless amounts of user data. As the dead internet becomes a problem, he wants to use Chrome itself to detect when it’s being used by a human and scrape all the data they produce. I instantly uninstalled the Perplexity app after seeing that.
Sorry I can’t find the link.
Hmm I wonder how they intend to get 34 billion back from their investment?
You kidding? Google Chrome has the biggest market share. It’s the window to the internet for many. Control that and you practically control the internet as a platform.
I think he's being sarcastic.
Getting back? What is this, the purchase of a textile factory in 1900? All we trade these days is hype. I've transformed my mind into a fabulous factory for hype. I share my late-night infomercials with hollow dreams and empty glitz. Every morning, I wake up to a profit projection I crafted ages ago that concludes only one thing: I’m eternally destined to chase empty promises. My dazzling ambitions, my relentless optimism, my stubborn refusal to balk at the absurd—these have launched me on a glorious carousel where logic never intervenes.
I imagined changing the world without thinking about the real cost, and by the time I noticed, I had run out of backup plans. What am I offering? I’m stuck using the same old tricks to make empty promises seem exciting. I give up my integrity to sell dreams for someone else's imaginary future. I work tirelessly for a bright tomorrow that I know we'll never get to see. The drive that started all this will never get applause or a spotlight. So what do I give up? Everything!
We can buy anything with any amount of money.
Startups in 2025.
I will never cease to be amazed at how ungodly much cash startups often have.
VC funding, baybeeeee
with what money
Everyone else’s but theirs.
Our taxpayer dollars, since Perplexity is a huge backer of Truth Social
You might as well ask with what money ANYTHING in ai is getting done right now, because none of it is profitable. It’s investor cash.
lol this number makes no sense. Minecraft was worth 4 billion a decade ago. Chrome is worth way more than 34
Good play to suck up data. I wonder if OpenAI, Palantir and others will bid too. Might be brilliant for Nvidia.
Palantir buying Chrome would be so cyberpunk it hurts.
I offer $1000. That is probably higher than my evaluation. I would remove manifest V3 immediately.
Ai needs data, you’re going to see more of this happening.
AI needs customers. Chrome would become bloated with premium services
AI startup Perplexity has offered Google $34.5 billion to buy the Chrome browser. The price might be below evaluation, but the company may be forced to sell the browser at the request of U.S. authorities as part of a case in which it was found guilty of being a monopoly.
https://x.com/80Level/status/1955488788861555082
Might as well be wanting all that juicy personal information from which to mine not only for profit but also for sending a SWAT team through the door without a court order and a search warrant. Or, sending a Hellfire missile through a window of a house somewhere in Pakistan.
Il offer 35 billion considering the entire economy at this point is made up inflated bullshit.
Fuck it, I'll chip in a couple of billion too.
How... perplexing!
Good thing I haven't used Chrome in so long.
Wouldn't people just leave? I feel like that's such an easy thing to do these days. If they are too old, they probably weren't using Chrome anyway and default to edge since its just there. I know not everyone would, but I wonder what the percentage would be in the end. They have been killing it themselves lately with the removal of the blockers. I've been on Firefox for over a decade now. If Firefox did something like this, I would be gone in a day.
Never underestimate people’s stubbornness to stick with enshittified platforms.
completely anecdotally, but the numbers of users of ublock origin have gone up a bit since manifest v3 was released, and thus removed ad blockers.
The vast majority of people will keep using whatever they are already used to unless there’s egregious changes that impact their workflows. Even then they might not move.
People haven't left yet and it's already a data collecting beast. And blocks ad blockers. And so on.
Mozilla is in a death spiral.
