Random email to buy $54 billion company leaves CEO amused: ‘Does Satya Nadella still get spam?’

The CEO of Cloudflare was recently left amused by an email with an “offer to purchase” his company.

Published on: May 23, 2025, 02:03:03 IST

By Sanya Jain

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The CEO of Cloudflare was recently left amused by an email with an “offer to purchase” his company. Matthew Prince, the co-founder, executive chairman, and chief executive officer of Cloudflare, took to the social media platform X to share a screenshot of the email, wondering how much bigger the company would have to grow before he stopped receiving such emails.

Matthew Prince, co-founder and chief executive officer of Cloudflare Inc., wonders about spam emails (Bloomberg)

What is Cloudflare?

For some context, Cloudflare is a web infrastructure and security company that provides a variety of services to make websites faster, safer, and more reliable.

According to Forbes, it has a market capitalization of $54.25 billion and reported $1.4 billion in revenue last year.

What offer did the Cloudflare CEO receive?

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Matthew Prince received an email from a “private equity firm” offering to purchase Cloudflare, which he dismissed as spam.

“We have a private equity firm in our network who is very interested in acquiring Cloudflare. Given their mandate, this opportunity is an excellent match. Would you be open to discuss this opportunity?” read the email.

What was his reaction?

Prince first dismissed the offer as spam, then wondered whether the CEOs of tech giants like Microsoft and Apple still received bogus offers like he does.

“At what size company do you think you stop getting these spam messages? Like do you think Tim Cook, Satya Nadella, Jensen Huang, Mark Zuckerberg still get them?” he wondered.

“You really think people at the top read their emails? They are read by an assistant who cherry picks the most relevant emails and sometimes sprinkles in reality as long as it's not too jarring,” one X user answered.

“Do you still get job offers at other companies too?” another asked. The CEO of Cloudflare responded, “Very rarely. And usually when they think they’re emailing another Matthew at the company.”

(Also read: This Indian-origin CFO's salary was higher than Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella in 2024)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sanya Jain
Sanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience - from viral videos to human interest copies that spark conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and looking for newsworthy angles to elevate viral posts into meaningful narratives. She was the first one, for example, to cover Narayana Murthy’s remark on 70-hour work weeks that sparked a national conversation. She is equally at ease writing about business leaders as about the common man, about issues of national importance and memes that amuse social media. Sanya enjoys speaking with content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs to transform everyday moments into engaging, slice-of-life stories that resonate with readers. When she is not working, Sanya can be found curled up with a good book. Born and raised in Lucknow, she has spent the last several years in Delhi. She is deeply interested in animal welfare and now spends a lot of her time running after her destructive orange cat.Read More

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