Sources: Twitter's board of directors will meet this Thursday and discuss the company's options, including potential sale, trimming or selling off MoPub, Vine
Talk of a sale continues to rumble, but finding a buyer won't be easy. — Twitter's quiet summer may soon be coming to an end.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second time in about a year Twitter's board has convened a Thursday strategy session: the last one, in September 2015, was a CEO search that ended with Jack Dorsey as the leading internal candidate. What's changed since is that the question is no longer who runs Twitter but whether Twitter exists as an independent company.
The sale talk has been building all month — sources say suitors include Salesforce and Google, with Twitter holding out for at least $30B — but the process is complicated by an internal split the board is already consulting advisers about, with Ev Williams favoring a sale and Dorsey resisting one. Putting MoPub and Vine on the table suggests the board is preparing to slim the company down to make a deal easier to swallow.
First-order effects
- Thursday's meeting forces Dorsey and Williams to resolve their opposing positions on a sale in front of advisers, turning a private disagreement into a formal board decision.
- Trimming or selling MoPub and Vine would strip revenue-generating and user-facing assets out of the package Salesforce and Google are reportedly being asked to buy at Twitter's stated $30B floor.
Second-order effects
- If Vine goes to market separately, outside bids — which later reporting suggests came in low — will establish what the asset is actually worth apart from Twitter, resetting expectations for the whole-company price.
- A formal bid arriving soon, as sources indicate, pressures any other rumored suitors to either match the $30B ask quickly or drop out before the board locks in a direction.
Third-order effects
- The pattern here — a consumer platform under growth pressure pruning non-core products and entertaining sale rather than expanding, as it once did with stalled talks like the Flipboard acquisition — points toward social media consolidating around fewer, larger owners.
- If boards increasingly resolve founder-versus-investor splits through adviser-led processes like this one, governance at founder-led public tech companies shifts toward financial buyers setting the agenda.
The trend: Consumer social platforms hitting growth limits are responding by shedding non-core assets and opening themselves to sale, concentrating the industry around fewer, larger acquirers.