Jun 24, 2015 07:00 AM EDT
Jay Z Net Worth: Rapper's Tidal Service Fires CEO

Tidal's interim chief executive officer has been taken out from Jay Z's music streaming service after holding the position for less than three months.

Wall Street Journal reports that an official from Tidal announced on Tuesday that interim CEO Peter Tonstad was let go. "We are thankful to Peter for stepping in as interim CEO and wish him the best for the future."

Based in Scandinavia, the company appointed the Norweigian national, Tonstad in April, after serving as CEO at Tidal's parent company, Aspiro.

Mr. Tonstad replaced Tidal's previous CEO, Andy Chen, who gave up his position earlier in April.

Launched in a highly-publicized press conference in March, Tidal created a huge buzz with big musicians promoting the new music-streaming service.

With Jay Z on the lead, other music artists like Beyonce, Kanye West, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Usher and Madonna took the stage as Tidal's co-owners. These artists promoted the launch of their music-streaming service at the social media by switching their Twitter avatars to Tidal's color, blue.

This new business venture seems to have helped boost Jay Z's current net worth. 

However, with a total of 770,000 paying subscribers, Tidal fell way short compared to its well-established rival, Spotify. The latter boasts of 20 million paying subscribers. 

Another road block is the rise of Apple's newly-launched music streaming service, Apple Music, that has subscription fee amounting to $10 a month.

Despite its array of famous musician owners, Tidal is in a crucial state in marketing as threatened by Apple's power in the music business, since iTunes has been the biggest music retailer in the world for 12 years.

Tidal sets itself differently from Spotify and Apple Music with its better quality in sound, exclusive music and video releases, and their promise to pay music owners higher royalty fees.

Just recently, Apple Music was bashed by another pop artist, Taylor Swift for planning to not pay musicians for streaming their music during the first three months of free-trial.

Fans will have to see in the coming months whether or not Jay Z's net worth of $650 million will grow under new management and in the midst of upcoming rival services. 

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