How a trader just made $2.4 million in half an hour

In a very well-timed trade, a trader made over $2 million in just 28 minutes, playing what could be one of the biggest tech deals this year.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Intel is in talks to buy competitor chipmaker Altera. Shares of Altera shares soared 28 percent when the report was released, valuing the company at $13.4 billion by the end of trading on Friday.

For one trader, the report allowed for incredible profits in a very short amount of time.

On Friday at 3:32 pm EDT, Journal M&A report Dana Mattioli tweeted:

Within seconds, a trader jumped into the options market and bought 3,158 contracts of the April 36-strike calls priced at about 35 cents. As each contract controls 100 shares, the trader's total cost was $110,530. A call is a bullish wager that gives the purchaser the right to buy a stock at a given price on a set date.

Read MoreIntel in talks to buy Altera, shares of firms surge

As the report surfaced, Altera was trading at around $34.76 per share. It then traded as high as $45, closing at $44.39.

However, the call options gave the trader enormous leverage that allowed returns far greater than the 28 percent the stock saw in those 28 minutes. The April 36-strike calls were worth $8.10 by the market's close. That means the trader was looking at a profit (on paper) of $2.5 million, or more than 2,200 percent.

On Monday morning, the calls traded a bit lower, at $6.60

According to CNBC contributor Mike Khouw, there are three possible ways the trader was able to react so quickly: The trader could have just caught Mattioli's tweet at exactly the right time, a bot may have alerted the trader of the tweet, or the trader knew that there was something going on beforehand and had a finger on the trigger waiting for the news to come out.

"A bot is not as outlandish as it sounds," Khouw said. "Traders need to aggregate and filter through tremendous amounts of data quickly and will rely on technology to help if it is available."

Should the deal in fact occur, it would be the largest-ever acquisition for Intel.

Neither Intel nor Altera has responded to requests for comment by CNBC.