Less than four months after announcing he was joining the video app, Kevin Mayer, the chief executive of the Chinese-owned video app TikTok, has announced he is resigning after the company came under sustained pressure from the Trump administration over its ties to China.
“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 memo 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.”
TikTok hired Mayer, a former top Disney executive, to run the app which is the first owned by a Chinese company to gain significant traction in western countries. In addition to his CEO responsibilities, Mayer became chief operating officer of ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company.
Since then, though, TikTok has come under fire from the US government, and Trump has threatened to ban the app if it isn’t sold by ByteDance.
Kevin Mayer also indicated in the memo to employees that “the future is incredibly bright” for TikTok.
Referring to the political criticism, he said, “Like all companies in our space, we face challenges, but I have tremendous confidence that we have a world-class security team in place working to make people on our platform safe, and an amazing global team that makes this such a unique, creative and inclusive platform.”
In light of Mr Mayer’s resignation, a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement. “We appreciate that the political dynamics of the last few months have significantly changed what the scope of Kevin’s role would be going forward, and fully respect his decision.”
His departure highlights the difficulties facing TikTok as it has become a casualty of the worsening U.S.-China tensions. As part of a campaign of being tough on China, President Trump and other White House officials have homed in on technology companies, which they say are beholden to the Chinese government through security laws. In recent months, the Trump administration has stepped up its scrutiny of TikTok, saying it poses just such a national security threat because of its Chinese ownership.
TikTok has pushed back against the Trump administration with the company suing the U.S. government, accusing it of depriving it of due process by forcing a sale using an executive order. In its fight to stay alive in the United States, TikTok also pointed to Mr. Mayer’s status as an American executive based in the country to argue that it was not beholden to the Chinese government.
The app has become increasingly popular in the United States and in other countries like India, where teenagers and young adults especially use it to create and share videos. In the United States alone, TikTok has said it has more than 100 million users. In total, TikTok’s app has been downloaded about 1.9 billion times worldwide, according to Sensor Tower, an app data firm.
