PayPal leaves door open to higher Stripe bid

PayPal appears to still be open to Stripe’s $53.4 billion takeover bid — just not at the price on the table. On the company’s Q2 2026 earnings call Tuesday, CEO Enrique Lores didn’t rule out a deal, saying PayPal would consider any path that created “superior value” for shareholders. That isn’t the same as saying “PayPal’s not for sale,” but it suggests the company doesn’t believe Stripe and Advent International’s current offer of $60.50 per share values PayPal correctly — especially after it reported better-than-expected profit and revenue and pointed to progress on its turnaround strategy.

Financial-services firm Cantor has valued PayPal at closer to $70 per share; the stock is currently trading around $58. PayPal reported adjusted profit of $1.38 per share, beating expectations of $1.28. Revenue rose 5% year-over-year to $8.68 billion, above estimates of $8.47 billion, and adjusted free cash flow came in at $1.8 billion, giving the company room to keep investing in its strategy.

Lores wouldn’t address Stripe’s offer directly, saying PayPal doesn’t comment on potential mergers or market speculation, but he acknowledged a viable bid wouldn’t be dismissed outright. “If we see levers or a path that we believe would create superior value for our shareholders than executing our current strategy, we would, of course, carefully consider them,” he told investors.

PayPal is still working through an AI-focused turnaround that restructured the company into three segments — checkout solutions and PayPal; consumer financial services, including Venmo; and payment services and crypto — while applying AI to coding, customer service, support operations, and risk management to cut costs. Lores said PayPal was making good progress toward a target of at least $1.5 billion in gross run-rate savings over the next two to three years, was on track to remove three organizational layers, and continued to modernize its technology, including migrating from its data center to the cloud.

Why it matters

A higher bid from Stripe would test how much PayPal’s AI-driven turnaround is actually worth to shareholders, and whether the two once-rival payments companies end up combining after all.