Perplexity offers to buy Google’s Chrome browser for $34.5 billion
The Perplexity app in the Apple App Store on a smartphone arranged in Washington, DC, US, on Sunday, June 1, 2025.
Stefani Reynolds | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI has made an unsolicited $34.5 billion bid for Google’s Chrome browser, CNBC confirmed on Tuesday.
That figure is higher than Perplexity’s current valuation, but the company said several investors have agreed to back the deal. In July, Perplexity was valued at $18 billion as part of an extension that valued the company at $14 billion months earlier.
Google did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment. The Wall Street Journal was first to report the bid.
Perplexity is best known for its AI-powered search engine that gives users simple answers to questions and links out to the original source material on the web. Last month, it launched its own AI-powered browser called Comet.
The startup is in the middle of a battle for supremacy in generative AI, with companies including Meta and OpenAI offering massive salaries and signing bonuses to top engineers. Megacap tech companies are spending tens of billions of dollars a year on AI infrastructure to build large language models and run hefty workloads, while startups are raising billions of dollars from venture investors, hedge funds and tech giants to pay for the hardware and headcount needed to compete.
Perplexity was approached by Meta earlier this year about a potential acquisition, but the companies did not finalize a deal.
Perpexity’s bid comes after the U.S. Department of Justice proposed Google divest Chrome as part of the antitrust suit the company lost last year. The judge in the case ruled that Google has held an illegal monopoly in its core market of internet search.
In response, Google said the DOJ was pushing “a radical interventionist agenda,” and that the agency’s proposal was “wildly overbroad.” The company has not yet disclosed how it plans to adjust its business following the antitrust ruling.
Chrome, which Google launched in 2008, provides the search giant with data it then uses for targeting ads. The DOJ said in a filing following the court’s decision that forcing the company to get rid of Chrome would create a more equal playing field for search competitors.
“To remedy these harms, the [Initial Proposed Final Judgment] requires Google to divest Chrome, which will permanently stop Google’s control of this critical search access point and allow rival search engines the ability to access the browser that for many users is a gateway to the internet,” the DOJ wrote.
Perplexity’s bid for Chrome is not the first time it’s taken a big swing.
The startup submitted a proposal to merge with the short-form video app TikTok in January. TikTok’s future in the U.S. has been uncertain since 2024, when Congress passed a bill that would ban the platform unless its Chinese owner, ByteDance, divested from it.
As of August, Perplexity’s proposed structure has not materialized.
WATCH: Perplexity makes unsolicited $34.5 billion bid for Google’s Chrome browser
Mike Intrator, co-founder and CEO of CoreWeave, speaks at the Nasdaq headquarters in New York on March 28, 2025.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images
CoreWeave shares fell about 6% in extended trading on Tuesday even as the provider of artificial intelligence infrastructure beat estimates for second-quarter revenue
Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:
- Earnings per share: Loss of 21 cents
- Revenue: $1.21 billion vs. $1.08 billion expected
Revenue more than tripled from $395.4 million a year earlier, CoreWeave said in a statement. The company registered a $290.5 million net loss, compared with a $323 million loss in second quarter of 2024. CoreWeave’s earnings per share figure wasn’t immediately comparable with estimates from LSEG.
CoreWeave’s operating margin shrank to 2% from 20% a year ago due primarily to $145 million in stock-based compensation costs. This is CoreWeave’s second quarter of full financial results as a public company following its IPO in March.
CoreWeave pointed to an expansion in business with OpenAI, a major client and investor. Also during the quarter, CoreWeave acquired Weights and Biases, a startup with software for monitoring AI models, for $1.4 billion.
In May, management touted 420% revenue growth, alongside widening losses and nearly $9 billion in debt. The stock still doubled anyway over the course of the next month.
CoreWeave shares became available on Nasdaq at the end of the first quarter, after the company sold 37.5 shares at $40 each, yielding $1.5 billion in proceeds. As of Tuesday’s close, the stock was trading at $148.75 for a market cap of over $72 billion.
A CoreWeave data center project with up to 250 megawatts of capacity is set to be delivered in 2026, the company said in the statement.
Executives will discuss the results and issue guidance on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
WATCH: Citi’s Tyler Radke’s bullish call on CoreWeave, upgraded to buy
U.S. President Donald Trump (L) invites Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to speak in the Cross Hall of the White House during an event on “Investing in America” on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images
The Trump administration is still working out the details of its 15% export tax on Nvidia and AMD and could bring deals of this kind to more companies, the White House’s Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday.
“Right now it stands with these two companies. Perhaps it could expand in the future to other companies,” said Leavitt, the White House’s spokesperson.
“The legality of it, the mechanics of it, is still being ironed out by the Department of Commerce, and I would defer you to them for any further details on how it will actually be implemented,” she continued.
President Donald Trump confirmed on Monday that he had negotiated a deal with Nvidia in which the U.S. government approves export licenses for the China-specific H20 AI chip in exchange for a 15% cut of revenue. Advanced Micro Devices also got licenses approved in exchange for a proportion of its China sales, the White House confirmed.
“I said, ‘If I’m going to do that, I want you to pay us as a country something, because I’m giving you a release,'” Trump said Monday.
“We follow rules the U.S. government sets for our participation in worldwide markets,” Nvidia said in a statement this week.
Trump said the export licenses for AMD and Nvidia were a done deal. But lawyers and experts who follow trade have warned that Trump’s deal may be complicated because of existing laws that regulate how the government can charge fees for export licenses.
The Commerce Department didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
The H20 is Nvidia’s Chinese-specific chip that is slowed down on purpose to comply with U.S. export relations. It’s related to the H100 and H200 chips that are used in the U.S., and was introduced after the Biden administration implemented export controls on artificial intelligence chips in 2023.
Earlier this year, Nvidia said that it was on track to sell more than $8 billion worth of H20 chips in a single quarter before the Trump administration in April said that it would require a license to export the chip.
Trump signaled in July that he was likely to approve export licenses for the chip after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang visited the White House.
The U.S. regulates AI chips like those made by Nvidia for national security reasons, saying that they could be used by the Chinese government to leapfrog U.S. capabilities in AI, or they could be used by the Chinese military or linked groups.
The Chinese government has been encouraging local companies in recent weeks to avoid using Nvidia’s H20 chips for any government or national security-related work, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
WATCH: Access to Nvidia’s H20 won’t hand China an AI advantage: Analyst
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