Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal are independently reporting that Discord has turned down Microsoft’s acquisition offer and will launch an initial public offering (IPO) instead. The talks broke down after Discord rejected a $12 billion offer from the software giant.
Rumors of Microsoft’s interest in Discord first appeared in March, with The Wall Street Journal later reporting that Microsoft was in “exclusive” talks to buy the chat service just a few days later as other suitors like Epic Games and Amazon backed down. Microsoft was originally looking at spending about $10 billion on Discord, so it would appear that $12 billion was its best offer.
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But even at the height of Microsoft’s activity, there were reports that Discord was just pumping up interest in the firm ahead of an IPO. And that now appears to be the case.