TikTok CEO Kevin Mager left the well known Chinese owned company behind the popular video app just three months after it took over, and a few days after the company sued the US government over its executive order banning the service in the US.
According to Reuters, the company announced that Kevin Mager will be replaced by Vanessa Pappas, general manager for the USA, on a transitional basis. The resignation comes amid a difficult period for the fast-growing TikTok app, which is trying to convince both the US and India that it is not a security threat, while at the same time negotiating with potential buyers following a second decree, which requires sale of its American part.
Mager was at Walt Disney Co. before becoming CEO of TikTok and chief operating officer of parent company ByteDance. "In recent weeks, as the political environment has changed rapidly, I have been thinking a lot about what corporate structural change will require and what it means for the international role I came for," he wrote in a letter to employees. "Against this background, and as we expect to reach a solution soon, I must tell you with a heavy heart that I have decided to leave the company".
ByteDance founder and CEO Zhang Yming said in a separate letter seen by Reuters that the company was "moving fast to find solutions to the problems we face worldwide, especially in the US and India."
As he wrote, Mager arrived at the company while it was entering the moment of its biggest challenge.
"It is never easy to become a leader in a company that moves as fast as we do, and the circumstances that followed its arrival made it more complicated", he said.
Amid deteriorating relations between Washington and Beijing, Trump described TikTok as a national security threat because it could share information of its users with the Chinese government. Trump issued a decree banning TikTok on August 6, which will take effect in mid-September. About a week later he issued another decree, giving ByteDance 90 days to get rid of TikTok's US operations and data.
ByteDance has reportedly been in talks to sell its North American, Australian and New Zealand shares, which could be worth up to $ 30 billion, to companies such as Microsoft and Oracle.
The application has also been targeted in India, where it was one of 59 Chinese applications banned by the Indian government in June following a border clash between Indian and Chinese troops.
Lol. Trump banned Tiktok for security concerns. So many people were making money from this and now they don't have a job. Meanwhile facebook, twitter and google are massively collecting private data of 7 billion people.