How much did ByteDance pay to acquire Musical.ly?

ByteDance paid about $1 billion to acquire Musical.ly.

The deal was reported in November 2017, when ByteDance acquired Musical.ly, the popular lip-sync and short-video app founded by Alex Zhu and Luyu Yang. Reports described the price as as much as $1 billion, while some contemporary estimates placed the transaction closer to $800 million.

ByteDance’s purchase gave it a strong foothold among young users in the United States and other international markets. Rather than operating Musical.ly indefinitely as a separate major platform, ByteDance merged it with TikTok in August 2018. Existing Musical.ly accounts, followers, and much of the user base transitioned into TikTok.

The amount is often confused with later valuations, investment figures, or estimates of Musical.ly’s worth. The safest historical phrasing is “about $1 billion” or “as much as $1 billion,” because public reporting used an upper-bound figure and other outlets gave a lower estimate. The stored answer is the canonical quiz response.