Google just received a perplexing offer to buy Chrome

We're not usually in the business of writing about potential buy outs, but the offer Google recently got for Chrome is a tricky one to ignore. The offer comes from AI startup Perplexity, and it's for a huge sum of money.

Now the first thing to note is that Google Chrome isn't actually currently for sale. The second thing to consider, as reported by 9to5Google, is that the $34.5 billion bid is worth twice what Perplexity as an entire company is valued at.

The third thing, which is a little more left field but still worth mentioning, is that Perplexity is one of the companies Apple has been rumoured to be considering acquiring. Apple CEO Tim Cook said Apple would consider buying any company that helped speed up its road map, though it hasn't officially confirmed interest in any specific companies as yet.

What's all this about a $34.5 billion bid for Chrome?

Back to this perplexing bid though – see what we did there. According to The Wall Street Journal and Reuters, the offer to Google for Chrome is an "all-cash offer". Reuters said that Perplexity has pledged to keep Chromium open source and “invest $3 billion over two years” into it.

It was also said Perplexity won't make changes to the default search engine, while the extra money to finance the deal is said to be coming from "multiple funds", though its not clear what those are.

Perplexity recently launched its own Comet web browser and it's certainly been making a name for itself over the last few months. It previously tried to move to buy TikTok, as 9to5Google notes, and it was added to the most recent Motorola Razr flip phones too as an AI option. It's not the only party interested in Chrome however, with both OpenAI and Yahoo previously said to be keen.

For now, Google Chrome is still not for sale but it will be interesting to see how this all plays out, especially with Google's antitrust trial coming to a close.