The new CEO, Shouzi Chew, is the chief financial officer of
ByteDance. He is based in Singapore, where TikTok has an office.
Vanessa Pappas, based in Los Angeles, has been interim head
of TikTok since August 2020. That’s when Kevin Mayer, a former top Disney
executive who lasted just a few months as TikTok’s chief, resigned. Pappas will
become TikTok’s chief operating officer.
Chew became ByteDance CFO in March. He had previously been a
top executive for Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi, which went public in 2018.
TikTok’s app features short videos, many with music and
dancing, made by its users that has become a favorite of younger people.
Research firm eMarketer predicts that TikTok will have 73 million U.S. users
this year, and TikTok said last year that it has about 700 million users
globally. There is a separate version of TikTok called Douyin for Chinese
users.
TikTok named Mayer as its U.S.-based CEO last year amid
scrutiny from President Donald Trump and his administration, which tried to ban
the app based on vague national-security concerns and to force its sale to
Oracle and Walmart. The Biden administration has put these efforts on hold as
it reviews national security threats posed by Chinese technology companies.
While it’s still unclear what the Biden administration will
decide to do with TikTok, the CEO choice suggests the pressure is off ByteDance
compared with how the company fared under Trump, said eMarketer analyst Debra
Aho Williamson. “It does seem to me that the concern over ByteDance having to
divest TikTok may be lessened. TikTok is trying to move forward as a truly
global company, and one that hopefully isn’t going to be broken up.”
ByteDance CEO Yiming Zhang said in a statement that Chew
will focus on “corporate governance and long-term business initiatives,” while
Pappas oversees the app’s operations.
“We will continue building out our strong and deep
management team as we set the stage for the next phase of TikTok’s success,”
Chew said.