SEC filing says LinkedIn drew interest from as many as five possible buyers, source says Google and Facebook were among them
LinkedIn had more suitors than we thought. — Google and Facebook were among the suitors that looked at buying LinkedIn, which ultimately sold to Microsoft for $26 billion last month.
Context & Ripple Effects
The sale story keeps widening: after Marc Benioff publicly confirmed Salesforce was a rival suitor and sources said LinkedIn itself reached out to Microsoft, the SEC filing now shows the auction was broader still — as many as five potential buyers, with Google and Facebook among those who looked. That follows the earlier disclosures that another bidder, likely Salesforce, offered more per share in cash and stock but lost to Microsoft's all-cash bid.
Why it matters: a five-way field reframes Microsoft's $26 billion price from an outlier to the clearing level of a genuinely contested auction, and it clarifies which strategic buyers chose to walk away.
First-order effects
- Microsoft's $26 billion all-cash win is now legible as a competitive outcome rather than a panic premium — it beat a richer mixed offer because sellers priced deal certainty, per the filing trail.
Second-order effects
- Salesforce loses the professional-graph asset it bid hardest for, leaving it to compete against Microsoft's ownership of LinkedIn data in enterprise software; Google and Facebook's pass means the network stays out of advertising and social rivals' hands.
Third-order effects
- If scarce, large independent data assets keep drawing multi-buyer fields, expect more consolidation decided by cash certainty over headline price — and closer regulatory attention to which platform ends up holding the asset.
The trend: Large independent data and network assets are being consolidated into cash-rich platforms through contested auctions where payment structure beats the top bid.