As Meta Launches Twitter Rival, Let's Look Back At Why Twitter Once Rejected Facebook's $500 Million Offer

It's a no-brainer that Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg¡¯s rivalry has been the talk of the town for many years. Nearly four months ago, the world's richest person Musk had called Zuckerberg a copycat for planning to launch Twitter¡¯s rival app.

Meta Launches Twitter Rival App

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And now, the Meta CEO has finally launched the ¡®Twitter killer¡¯ app Threads, which has further deepened the two billionaires¡¯ rivalry amid the already existing possibility of a cage fight between them.

While the world gets busy with trying out the Twitter rival app ¡®Threads,¡¯ which witnessed over five million sign-ups within just four hours of launch (as per Zuckerberg), let us throw light on something not many of you might be aware of when it comes to Twitter-Meta (formerly Facebook)¡¯s rivalry.

Did you know that the Meta-Twitter rivalry that we are witnessing in recent times, could not have been possible if Twitter accepted Facebook's $500 million offer in 2008?

When Twitter Rejected Facebook¡¯s $500 Million Offer

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In 2008, Twitter¡¯s popularity was rising, and Facebook quickly jumped at the chance to buy the social networking company.

In his book Things a Little Bird Told Me, Biz Stone, one of Twitter's co-founders, said that Zuckerberg had offered $500 million to take over Twitter in 2008. Biz said that he had suggested $500 million as the takeover price to fellow co-founder and CEO Evan Williams as it was the biggest number he could imagine then.

But things didn't go as planned, as Twitter rejected Facebook's offer for not one or two but in fact three reasons. Evan Williams had reportedly written a letter to the board, which he later posted on the publishing platform ¡®Medium¡¯.

The three reasons cited by him to decline the offer were based on whether ¡®The offer captures the upside¡¯, ¡®imminent threat¡¯, and ¡®personal choice¡¯.

Focusing on the three reasons, Facebook's offer was rejected by Twitter in 2008. Fast forward to now, Twitter has already been bought by the world's richest person Elon Musk for $44 billion, and Meta CEO Zuckerberg has launched Twitter's rival app 15 years after failing to buy Twitter.

Also Read: List Of Companies Co-Founded/Headed By Elon Musk

Reasons Why Twitter's Then-CEO Rejected Facebook's Offer

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On the first reason of ¡®the offer captures the upside¡¯, Twitter's former CEO Evan Williams said every business has natural growth limits. If someone offered you $10 million for your coffee shop that does $250,000 a year in sales, it¡¯s pretty clear you should sell ¡ª from a purely financial perspective. Finances are only one perspective, but if you have many shareholders, it¡¯s one you are obligated to take seriously.

¡°At the time, the offer we had on the table for Twitter ¡ª though a heck of a lot of money and a huge win for investors and anyone else involved ¡ª didn¡¯t seem like it captured the upside. Even though we weren¡¯t huge, and there were still a lot of doubters, I believed our potential was unbounded,¡± he wrote in his letter to the board, as per an HBL report.

On the second reason of ¡®imminent threat¡¯, he said there¡¯s potential, and then there¡¯s risk. And there¡¯s always risk, even in the best situations. But there are cases in which your chances of reaching your potential are slimmer than normal and maybe even totally out of your control. Sometimes the threat is internal ¡ª an inability to execute on one¡¯s opportunity.

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Twitter also had an internal threat. In his letter, he said: ¡°There was a while where our technical issues made us quite vulnerable. But by the time of this email, we felt we had moved past that. (We hadn¡¯t quite, but this was eventually true.) We had competitors who were larger and paying increasing amounts of attention to us, but it didn¡¯t feel like we were in real trouble.¡±

On the third reason of ¡®personal choice¡¯, he said in the letter that sometimes the founders or other key people may just be done. This is actually quite common and drives a lot of small acquisitions. It doesn¡¯t apply as much as companies get larger, because everyone is (eventually) replaceable ¡ª especially if the company is doing well.

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Also Read: Why Apple CEO Tim Cook Once Rejected Elon Musk's Offer To Acquire Tesla

¡°Back in 2003, I struggled a lot about the decision to sell Blogger to Google. The financial win wasn¡¯t clear (it was for a small amount of private stock ¡ª again, before their IPO). We had tonnes of room to grow and didn¡¯t have any real threats. And I even had a term sheet for more funding on the table. But I was compelled, ultimately, because I felt like Google was the best home for this thing I¡¯d built to reach its potential. I also knew I wanted to start another company and thought I¡¯d come out of a couple years at Google smarter and better. I also knew the team was going to be happy to join Silicon Valley¡¯s most esteemed company,¡± he had stated in his letter, as per the report.

But in Twitter¡¯s case, the founders had no desire to sell. ¡°I had actually just become CEO and was raring to go ¡ª as was the team. Additionally, the company we were having the discussion with didn¡¯t seem like one in which we¡¯d fit particularly well or the team would be stoked about,¡± he wrote in the letter.

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