NYT: Apple Considering Investment in Twitter in the ‘Hundreds of Millions of Dollars’ [Update]

Nick Bilton over at the New York Times reports Apple could be investing a stake in Twitter, according to unnamed sources:

Apple has considered an investment in the hundreds of millions of dollars, one that could value Twitter at more than $10 billion, up from an $8.4 billion valuation last year, these people said. They declined to be named because the discussions were private.

The report goes on to mention how Twitter’s relationship with Apple continues to prosper and grow, as we have seen with the social network’s deep integration into iOS and OS X. Facebook seems to be the one losing out with Apple after former disputes about partnering up, notably the failure to integrate Facebook into Apple’s Ping.

That has changed as Facebook is now part of iOS and OS X Mountain Lion, but with Facebook rumoured to rival Apple with their own rumoured smartphone ambitions Apple apparently is looking more towards Twitter, as seen in the system-wide integration within iOS 5.

Bilton goes on to mention Twitter’s chief financial officer, Ali Rowghani, would play an important part of any negotiations. Why? He formerly worked directly with Steve Jobs at Pixar for nine years and joined Twitter in 2010. An anonymous Apple employee noted Twitter’s VP, Kevin Thau, has been dedicated to working with Apple full time to continue fostering their lucky relationship with Apple.

Update: The WSJ chimes in and notes the talks were from a year ago, and there are no current investment discussions going on between Apple and Twitter:

Apple Inc. held discussions with Twitter Inc. more than a year ago about taking a strategic investment in the short-messaging service, according to a person familiar with the talks.

People familiar with the matter said there are no current formal investment or acquisition discussions between the companies.

…developing…refresh for updates.

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