TikTok Names New Chief Executive -- Update
April 30 2021 - 1:58PM
Dow Jones News
By Paul Ziobro
TikTok has named Shou Zi Chew, chief financial officer of parent
company ByteDance Ltd., to lead the buzzy short-form video app, in
a reshuffling that attempts to stabilize the leadership ranks of
the fast-growing company.
Mr. Chew is stepping in as CEO of TikTok, while also continuing
as ByteDance's finance chief, the company said in a blog post
Friday.
He replaces Vanessa Pappas, a former executive of Alphabet
Inc.'s YouTube who will shift into an operating chief role at
TikTok. Ms. Pappas became TikTok's interim head in August after the
abrupt resignation of former Walt Disney Co. executive Kevin Mayer.
The company said Ms. Pappas, who joined TikTok in 2018, will
maintain her current responsibilities including managing TikTok's
key operations.
Mr. Chew, who is based in Singapore, will steer TikTok at a time
of growing influence for the social-media platform, where users can
post short videos and scroll endlessly through other viral videos.
He joined ByteDance last month after working at Xiaomi Corp. since
2015 and spent most of his tenure with the Beijing-based smartphone
maker as finance chief.
TikTok has been at the center of a geopolitical standoff between
the U.S. and China for more than a year. The new appointment
appears to mark a pivot from initiatives last year aimed at TikTok
distancing itself from its Chinese roots, and casts doubt on
efforts to put parts of the company in U.S. hands.
The U.S. government has investigated whether the app, owned by
Beijing-based ByteDance, poses a risk to national security amid
concerns that the Chinese government could have access to the
personal data on millions of American users.
The Trump administration issued an executive order last year
that would ban the app unless it found an American buyer. Oracle
Corp. and Walmart Inc. were in a group having talks to buy TikTok's
U.S. operations, which ByteDance opposed with legal challenges. The
Biden administration in February shelved plans to require the sale
amid a broader review of potential security risks from Chinese tech
companies.
Mr. Mayer cited the changing political environment around TikTok
when he announced he was leaving the company last year, just weeks
after taking the job. He said that the role of CEO would be
drastically different if the U.S. operations were sold.
ByteDance owns and operates a suite of viral apps aside from
TikTok, including Chinese short-form video app Douyin, and gaming
companies. It bought Musical.ly in 2017 and later merged the app's
community with TikTok in 2018.
Write to Paul Ziobro at Paul.Ziobro@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 30, 2021 13:43 ET (17:43 GMT)
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