Twitter Chief Executive Dick Costolo denied rumors that Google might buy his company for as much as $10 billion in a comment that was far shorter than 140 characters.
“I don’t know where these things come from. It’s just a rumor,” Costolo said after a keynote presentation Monday afternoon at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. His remarks were in response to questions surrounding a report last week that Facebook and Google were both in low-level talks to buy the San Francisco company.
Costolo, however, declined to comment on a similar question about Facebook, which will undoubtedly keep tongues wagging and may even lead to some creative hashtags.
More good news for Facebook and its sky-high valuation. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is taking a small stake in the world’s most popular social-networking site by snapping up as much as $38 million of stock from other shareholders at a valuation of $52 billion.