Twitter dismisses reports of Google interest

Twitter CEO Evan Williams speaks at a news conference as the the website Twitter.com is launched, in San Francisco, California September 14, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Robert Galbraith

BARCELONA, Spain | Mon Feb 14, 2011 12:20pm EST

BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) - Reports that Google has held takeover talks with Twitter that value the microblogging site at as much as $10 billion are "just a rumor," Chief Executive Dick Costolo said on Monday.

Asked at the Mobile World Congress fair in Barcelona whether Google could afford a $10 billion acquisition, Costolo replied: "I don't know where these things come from. It's just a rumor."

He declined comment on a follow-up question on Facebook, which has also been reported to have held low-level takeover talks with Twitter.

Twitter, which had 175 million users as of September, raised $200 million in a December financing round that valued it at $3.7 billion.

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Will Waterman)