Jack Dorsey's Square is now a majority owner in Tidal, the music streaming service owned by Jay-Z. Here's where their friendship started and everything that's happened since.
- Jack Dorsey's Square has taken a majority stake in Tidal, the streaming platform owned by Jay-Z.
- The two moguls have met multiple times in the last year, including in Hawaii and the Hamptons.
- Following the announcement of the deal, they praised each other on Twitter as visionary leaders.
Jack Dorsey and Jay-Z are officially in business together, cementing a relationship that seems to have formed on the beaches of Hawaii and off the coast of the Hamptons.
Square and Tidal announced on Thursday that the fintech company would take a majority stake in the music-streaming platform. The widely anticipated deal was first reported last December after several photos surfaced of the two moguls vacationing together.
According to The New York Times' Katherine Rosman, the duo started hashing out the deal beginning "a few months ago."
Jesse Dorogusker, an executive at Square who will lead Tidal in the interim, told The Times that the deal "started as a conversation between the two of them" and that "they found that sense of common purpose."
Though it's unclear when the two moguls met, Dorsey has admired Jay-Z's business acumen since at least 2015, and in the wake of the deal, the two men have publicly praised each other as visionary leaders.
Here's where their friendship began and everything that's happened since.
Jay-Z is a rapper and business tycoon worth $1 billion.
Jack Dorsey is the billionaire CEO of both Twitter and Square.
Dorsey has gotten involved with Jay-Z's philanthropic endeavors. In April, he teamed up with Jay-Z and Rihanna to create $6.3 million in grants to support coronavirus relief efforts.
In May, Dorsey donated $10 million to Reform Alliance, a nonprofit focused on prison reform. The organization was founded by Jay-Z, rapper Meek Mill, and billionaire Michael Rubin.
That same month, Dorsey joined Jay-Z, Beyoncé, and their kids aboard a yacht. Dorsey and Jay-Z were photographed sipping rosé as the boat cruised around the waterways of the Hamptons.
The two moguls were then photographed on a beach in Hawaii last November, joined by actor Sean Penn.
In February, Dorsey and Jay-Z announced they were teaming up on a bitcoin endowment called "₿trust," which is focused on developing the cryptocurrency in India and Africa. The endowment is being funded by with an initial investment of 500 bitcoin.
Rumors began swirling in December that Jay-Z and Dorsey were working on a deal when Bloomberg reported that Square was in talks to buy Tidal as part of an ongoing strategy to shore up standalone services in its portfolio. For its part, Tidal has secured exclusive releases from major artists including Rihanna and Beyoncé, but hasn't overtaken rivals like Spotify or Apple Music.
Then, in March, Square announced that it would take a majority stake in Tidal for $297 million through a mix of cash and stock. Dorsey said Square will start integrating its services into artists' merchandise sales, new listening experiences and collaboration tools, and "complementary revenue streams."
As part of the deal, Jay-Z will join the board of Square. He tweeted that he and Dorsey have a "shared vision" and that "Jack is one of the greatest minds of our times."
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