> musical.ly appears to have always had its head office in Shanghai until the acquisition.
That's not true. I have not found a specific date, but the Shanghai office did not exist at the time musical.ly was founded. I have not found any references to the Shanghai office from before late 2015.
I searched for the Chinese name of the company (found on Wikipedia-zh) and immediately found all the information about how the company was founded and funded.[1] It was founded in Shanghai on 2013-08-01.
Not being able to find any reference on the English-speaking part of the web doesn’t mean it couldn’t have existed.
That's not true. I have not found a specific date, but the Shanghai office did not exist at the time musical.ly was founded. I have not found any references to the Shanghai office from before late 2015.