Call it Barbarians at the Prompt. Artificial intelligence hype and inflated valuations have led to some unorthodox and aggressive financial dealmaking. The latest instance is Perplexity’s unsolicited blockbuster approach for Google Chrome. On Tuesday the venture capital-backed group, whose latest private market valuation is a relatively modest $18bn, offered to purchase the web browser from Google for $35bn in cash.
The respective size of the two companies is not the only thing that makes this mooted deal odd. Another minor detail is that Chrome is currently not for sale, and is not going to be voluntarily put on the auction block by Google.
The Silicon Valley behemoth has, however, lost a competition lawsuit over its dominance of online search — a business that underpins its $2.5tn market capitalisation. As a result, Google is braced for a federal court to determine remedies. Among those put forth by the prosecution is a divestiture of the Chrome browser, which has been valued by analysts in the tens of billions of dollars.