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Ever wonder how much money Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook really have in the bank? If the reports today are true, apparently it’s a whole lot. The buzz around the web has Facebook trying to buy out Skype for up to $4 Billion stemming from an original story from Reuters. Nothing has been confirmed at this time, but it’s obvious there are moves being made and Skype appears to be trying to fire up a king-sized bidding war between Facebook and Google along with other unnamed companies.

Skype has been in the process of trying to secure more funding since August of 2010 when they filed for an IPO. When they filed for the IPO it was released that only 6 percent of their users paid for the service in any way. The IPO was put on hold in October due to the hiring of Cisco’s former senior vice president Tony Bates as the companies new CEO.

Logic would point towards Facebook being the most likely candidate since Google simply doesn’t need Skype as much as Facebook does. Google already has Google Talk and they just announced last week that video chat will be native in an upcoming release of the Android App. Facebook could benefit more from the purchase, but that doesn’t mean they could outbid big G. Google loves to gobble up companies that could be beneficial to a competitor, and they have the money to do it.

Facebook still hasn’t proven to have a profit model that exploits their massive popularity, and they would now be buying a company in the same boat which is why I think it’s much more likely that we see a partnership deal if Facebook and Skype to strike a deal. With Google and Apple both making strides in expanding their own mobile video chat and other VoIP solutions, Facebook may feel like they need this deal to keep pace so it will be interesting to see if Zuckerberg decides to step up with a big acquisition, or continue to develop their own technologies.

Another interesting piece that could add more credence to the story is that Skype has already integrated with Facebook in their latest version 5 Windows release. The software displays a tab for Facebook users to chat or call their friends directly from Skype.

Let us know if you think Facebook actually has the cash to pull off the purchase, or if you’d rather see another company end up with the technology.