February 10, 2011 - 13:03 AMT
Facebook, Google negotiate Twitter acquisition

Executives from Facebook, Google and other companies have held talks with Twitter over a possible acquisition of the micro-blogging service, pushing its estimated value as high as US$10 billion, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The figure is high for a company that only had revenue of $45 million last year, posted a loss, and estimates its revenue this year will be between $100 million to $110 million.

Despite what appears to be a rich valuation, Twitter executives are reportedly not interested in selling.

They believe they can build Twitter into a $100 billion company. That's one reason Twitter has been hiring engineers and other workers recently, in addition to a new executive team, including CEO Dick Costolo, formerly an executive at Google.

The newspaper did not say whether any formal offer was imminent, IDG New Service reported.