TikTok chief executive officer Kevin Mayer has left the short video app firm just three months since joining and days after TikTok sued the administration of US President Donald Trump over an executive order banning transactions with it in the country.
He is to be replaced by TikTok US general manager Vanessa Pappas on an interim basis, the company said.
Mayer was Walt Disney Co’s top streaming executive before joining TikTok on June 1. He was also appointed as chief operating officer of TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動).
Photo: AP
“In recent weeks, as the political environment has sharply changed, I have done significant reflection on what the corporate structural changes will require and what it means for the global role I signed up for,” Mayer said in a letter to employees.
“Against this backdrop, and as we expect to reach a resolution very soon, it is with a heavy heart that I wanted to let you all know that I have decided to leave the company,” he said.
In an e-mailed statement, TikTok confirmed Mayer’s departure and Pappas’ interim appointment.
It also confirmed the contents of the letter sent by Mayer earlier in the day.
ByteDance founder and chief executive officer Zhang Yiming (張一鳴) said in a separate internal letter that the company was “moving quickly to find resolutions to the issues that we face globally, particularly in the US and India.”
Mayer had joined just as the company was “entering arguably our most challenging moment,” Zhang said.
“It is never easy to come into a leadership position in a company moving as quickly as we are, and the circumstances following his arrival made it all the more complex,” he said.
Trump has said that TikTok is a national security threat and could share information about users with China’s government.
Trump on Aug. 6 issued an executive order banning US transactions with TikTok that takes effect in the middle of next month.
He issued a separate order on Aug. 14 giving ByteDance 90 days to divest of TikTok’s US operations and any data TikTok had gathered in the country.
ByteDance has been in talks to sell TikTok’s North American, Australian and New Zealand operations, which could be worth US$25 billion to US$30 billion, to companies including Microsoft Corp and Oracle Corp, people with knowledge of the matter have said.
The company has also been targeted in India, where TikTok was one of 59 Chinese apps banned by the Indian government in June.
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