UPDATED 00:24 EDT / OCTOBER 06 2016

NEWS

No one may want to buy Twitter, but it might not want to sell either

The chances of Twitter Inc. being acquired are quickly fading, with multiple reports Wednesday suggesting that all previously mentioned suitors may no longer be interested in placing a bid for the troubled company.

According to sources quoted by Recode, Google Inc. does not currently plan to make a bid for Twitter with the company “not moving forward with an effort to buy it at this time,” while Apple Inc. is said to be unlikely one of the possible suitors.

Added to the not-likely list is Walt Disney Co. who was first rumored to be interested in buying Twitter late September. Recode in a separate report quotes a source as saying that “the media giant has decided not to move forward.”

In theory, that should leave software as a service giant Salesforce.com Inc. as the last potential Twitter bidder. But even that’s not certain, with Business Insider claiming that Salesforce Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff is not sounding all that interested in buying the company either. When asked at an analyst meeting Wednesday about Twitter, he said, “I think it’s a great brand and I just wish Jack [Dorsey] very well… good on his company, that’s how I look at it today.” He implied that he looked into the possibility of a Twitter deal, saying that “we look at everything, and we don’t buy most things, and we haven’t agreed to buy that company… it’s an unpolished jewel.”

Benioff could also be purposely being cagey about a potential acquisition as well, given that Salesforce may end up being the only apparent remaining bidder for the site.

In related news, Reuters reports that Twitter has told potential acquirers, presuming there are any left, that it is seeking to conclude negotiations about selling itself by the time it reports third-quarter earnings on Oct. 27.

Internal arguments

Any sale of Twitter requires the approval of both the board and its shareholders, and that may not be a given. There are reports of internal arguments at the company as to whether they should sell themselves now, or continue to trade as a standalone company as it attempts to pivot into streaming live video.

According to Bloombergcurrent CEO Jark Dorsey wants to keep running Twitter as an independent company, while co-founder and board member Evan Williams wants to pursue a sale.

The relationship between Dorsey and Williams has become so dysfunction that Chief Financial Officer Anthony Noto is said to have seized de facto control of the company, and that it is Noto who is driving the move into live video, not Dorsey.

“Jack Dorsey has either ceded or lost at least some control over the future of the company he helped create. On the board, he may be overruled by fellow directors on the future of Twitter as an independent company,” the report notes.

Twitter shares plummeted on the news that Twitter may not find a buyer, with TWTR stock dropping 9 percent in after-hours trading to $22.58 a share.

Image credit: ateliertoepfer/Flickr/CC by 2.0

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