Facebook Tried to Buy Twitter — Twice

Facebook founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg tried to buy Twitter twice, apparently for a $500 million price tag, according to a new report.

The report comes from a new book by New York Times writer Nick Bilton called Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship and Betrayal, according to TechCrunch. The book alleges that Zuckerberg first went through "official channels" before approaching founder Jack Dorsey with a $500 million deal. (The price was Twitter's, not Zuckerberg's.)

Apparently, Dorsey took a meeting with Zuckerberg and suggested to the board that the deal would be great for Twitter. The board disagreed and later Dorsey was pushed out of his chief executive position to a largely symbolic role. It was then that the other founders, Ev Williams and Biz Stone, had a meeting with Zuckerberg, too.

This was in October 2011, just before Twitter was a household name, so saying no to $500 million took some chutzpah -- or arrogance, but the board believed it was a "billion-dollar company." However, the rumor was that Zuckerberg told the Twitter founders that they needed to sell to Facebook or deal with a "clone" that his company would create and strangle Twitter in its crib.

Despite the threat, Twitter refused. Now Twitter's initial public offering is valued around $11.9 billion -- so perhaps that chutzpah, or arrogance, really paid off?