Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Andre Young is about to get PAID. Rumor has it that Apple is offer the legendary producer a whopping $3.2 billion for his company, Beats Electronics, making it the largest acquisition in Apple’s history. Beats is responsible for making Dre the wealthiest hip-hop mogul ahead of the likes of Jay-Z and Diddy. The question now is whether Apple will just keep cranking out headphones, or take the company to new heights.
The deal, while perhaps not transformative for Apple, cements the company as the premier technology firm for music, a title that it claimed in the early 2000s with the advent of the iPod and iTunes and which has been challenged recently by brands like Beats in hardware and streaming services like Pandora and Spotify in software.
The Financial Times reports that a deal could be announced as early as next week, although terms are not final.