Facebook tried to take over Snapchat again in 2016

Facebook is said to have made another attempt to acquire Snapchat in 2016. The social network also reportedly did so in 2013, when it would have offered $3 billion. It is not known how much Facebook had left for Snap in 2016.

According to sources from The Wall Street Journal, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg approached Snap CEO Evan Spiegel in mid-2016. The approach would have been rejected by Spiegel and he would not have reported to the full board that there was interest from Facebook in a takeover.

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, is also said to have contacted Snap board members to gauge whether the company was interested in an acquisition. It is not known whether Facebook mentioned amounts in the takeover attempts in 2016.

Snap, Snapchat’s parent company, is said to have turned down a $3 billion takeover offer from Facebook in 2013. The company was valued at 2 billion at the time. It was previously rumored that Google also had plans to acquire Snap in 2016. The search giant is said to have offered $30 billion.

Snap went public in 2017 and was initially valued at over $25 billion. The stock market value has now fallen to about 6.5 billion dollars. The company saw the number of users decrease at the beginning of this year. This would have been caused, among other things, by a new design that was not liked by many users.