Apple acquires Beats Electronics for $3 billion

Why it matters

May 28, 2014. Apple announced its $3 billion acquisition of Beats Electronics, the headphone and streaming-music company that Dr. Dre and the record producer Jimmy Iovine had co-founded in 2006. The transaction was structured as $2.6 billion in cash plus $400 million in Apple stock. The acquisition closed in August 2014. The Beats deal made Dr. Dre, by a wide margin, the wealthiest figure in hip-hop in 2014. Dre's pre-tax personal share of the proceeds was reportedly around $620 million, which put him within striking distance of becoming the first hip-hop billionaire. (Forbes later determined he was just shy of that mark in 2014; Jay-Z would clear it in 2019.) The Beats Music streaming service that came with the acquisition became the technical foundation of Apple Music, which Apple launched in June 2015. Beats by Dre headphones remain one of the highest-grossing audio-product lines in the world. You can argue Dre's actual creative work peaked in 2001. His business work was peaking in 2014. The two trajectories are different. Both are real.