PayPal considered acquiring Pinterest in October 2021.
Bloomberg reported on October 20, 2021, that PayPal was interested in buying Pinterest, with a potential offer discussed at roughly $70 per share. The report immediately attracted attention because it would have joined a major digital-payments company with a visual-discovery and shopping platform. The proposed transaction was never completed.
PayPal and Pinterest had strategic reasons to appear complementary. PayPal operated payments, checkout, and consumer financial services, while Pinterest helped users discover products and ideas. An acquisition could theoretically have connected inspiration and product discovery with payment services, although the companies never publicly announced a finalized deal.
The story also illustrates an important distinction in business-news questions: “considered acquiring” does not mean “acquired.” PayPal’s board and management reportedly stepped back from a potential deal later that same week. Pinterest remained an independent public company, and PayPal did not purchase it.
The episode is sometimes confused with confirmed mergers involving other technology companies or with ordinary commercial partnerships. Here, the canonical answer is PayPal because it was the company specifically reported as exploring an acquisition in October 2021.