Perplexity Bids $34.5 Billion for Chrome: A Very Public Power Play
On August 12, 2025, Perplexity — itself worth a fraction of the price — made an unsolicited all-cash offer for Google Chrome amid the antitrust remedies fight.
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Per Reuters and CNBC, on August 12, 2025 AI search company Perplexity made an unsolicited $34.5 billion all-cash offer for Google's Chrome browser — a bid far above its own valuation at the time.
Why That Timing
The timing was pointed: a U.S. court was weighing remedies in the Google search monopoly case, with a Chrome divestiture on the table. The bid was widely read as courtroom-and-headlines positioning: even if it never closed, it nailed Perplexity to the 'Chrome alternative' spot in the public mind.
The Case and the Browser Are Both Still There
The court ultimately did not force a Chrome divestiture, but the gambit successfully hyped Perplexity's own Comet browser — in the AI gateway war, attention itself is an asset. The case is not over either: on January 16, 2026, Google filed an appeal over the search remedies and asked the court to pause parts of them while that appeal is heard (Google blog).
This article aggregates official announcements and public reporting; original sources are linked below.
Source:路透社
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