META
PYPL
New deal, bigger daydream
PayPal didn’t just announce a partnership with Meta — it also became the subject of a very loud M&A daydream. Thomas Hayes of Great Hill Capital argued Meta should buy PayPal for about $90 billion, saying the deal could shave years off Meta’s push to build a super-app.
The actual news: checkout with Muse
The real event here is the new partnership: Meta says shoppers can use Muse, its personal AI agent, to shop and check out across PayPal’s global merchant network. That expands an existing setup through Meta Pay, where users can already link accounts in Meta’s Accounts Center and set PayPal-based payment methods.
Why investors care
This is the kind of partnership that makes your antenna twitch, because payments data plus social/AI distribution is a potent combo. PayPal gets a fresher story around merchant reach and AI commerce, while Meta gets one more brick in its “super-app” wall — and the takeover chatter adds extra fuel to the speculative bonfire.
- PayPal was up in premarket after the announcement and the takeover buzz.
- Hayes said PayPal’s purchase-intent data could be worth a lot more when paired with Meta’s ad machine.
- Amazon came up only as a comparison point, not as part of the deal.
Big picture: even if the takeover pitch is just shareholder fantasy football for now, the partnership shows Meta is still trying to turn AI into something people actually use — preferably while buying stuff.