TikTok’s CEO navigates the boundaries of his energy

TikTok just lately tried to tamp down considerations from U.S. lawmakers that it poses a nationwide safety risk as a result of it’s owned by the Chinese web firm ByteDance. The viral video app insisted it had an arm’s-length relationship with ByteDance and that its personal government was in cost.

“TikTok is led by its own global CEO, Shou Zi Chew, a Singaporean based in Singapore,” TikTok wrote in a June letter to U.S. lawmakers.

But actually, Chew’s decision-making energy over TikTok is proscribed, in keeping with 12 former TikTok and ByteDance workers and executives.

Decisions concerning the service — together with strikes to emphasise livestreaming and procuring on TikTok — are made by Zhang Yiming, ByteDance’s founder, in addition to by a high ByteDance technique government and the top of TikTok’s analysis and growth workforce, mentioned the individuals, who declined to be recognized for worry of reprisals. TikTok’s progress and technique, that are led by ByteDance groups, report to not Chew however to ByteDance’s workplace in Beijing, they mentioned.

The preparations illustrate the tightrope that Chew, 39, walks as the top of one of many world’s hottest social apps. Since being appointed TikTok’s CEO in May 2021, he has needed to navigate presenting himself to the West because the autonomous chief of a worldwide service whereas fulfilling the calls for of the app’s Chinese guardian.

Chew faces mounting challenges. As TikTok has stormed its method onto individuals’s smartphones and accrued an estimated 1.6 billion month-to-month lively customers, its ByteDance ties have raised considerations that it might be siphoning off individuals’s information to Chinese authorities. In latest months, U.S. lawmakers and regulators have more and more questioned TikTok’s information practices, reigniting a debate over how the United States ought to deal with enterprise relationships with international corporations.

On Wednesday, TikTok’s chief working officer testified in Congress and downplayed the app’s China connections. On Thursday, President Joe Biden signed an government order to sharpen the federal authorities’s powers to dam Chinese funding in tech within the United States and to restrict its entry to personal information on residents.

In an electronic mail, TikTok mentioned Chew was finally chargeable for the app’s product and technique selections. ByteDance mentioned he was conversant in the corporate’s enterprise.

Little is thought about Chew and the way he operates TikTok. But the previous TikTok and ByteDance workers mentioned he had centered on bringing monetary self-discipline to the app throughout a worldwide downturn. He has tightened budgets, shuttered advertising experiments and laid off workers in North America because the app has moved extra operations to Singapore, they mentioned. Chew has additionally met with international enterprise executives and European regulators.

In a gathering late final yr, one TikTok worker requested the place Chew noticed the app in 100 years. “I just want to make money next year,” he mentioned, in keeping with three individuals who have been on the decision.

But ByteDance has extra management, others mentioned. “If he didn’t want to do something ByteDance wants him to do, he could be fired and someone else could be put in his place,” Salvatore Babones, the director of China and free societies on the Center for Independent Studies, an Australian suppose tank, mentioned of Chew.

Chew has acknowledged a well-known relationship with ByteDance that dates to when he helped spend money on the agency practically a decade in the past.

In March 2021, Chew introduced that he was becoming a member of ByteDance as chief monetary officer, fueling hypothesis that the corporate would go public. (It stays privately held.)

Two months later, TikTok appointed Chew as CEO, with Zhang praising his “deep knowledge of the company and industry.” Late final yr, Chew stepped down from his ByteDance function to give attention to TikTok.

TikTok had been and not using a everlasting CEO since August 2020, when Kevin Mayer, a former Disney government, left after the Trump administration’s effort to sunder the app from its Chinese guardian. China was additionally cracking down on its home web giants, with Zhang resigning from his official roles at ByteDance final yr. Zhang stays concerned in decision-making, individuals with data of ByteDance mentioned.

ByteDance has saved optics in thoughts in selecting TikTok CEOs, 5 individuals with data of Chew’s appointment mentioned. Mayer, who was based mostly in Los Angeles, was employed as a result of he was an American at a time when TikTok wished to look distinct from its Chinese guardian, they mentioned. Chew straddles the Western and Chinese enterprise worlds, with Singapore providing a hedge towards any potential crackdown from China or the United States, they mentioned.

But each Mayer’s and Chew’s energy as TikTok’s head has been circumscribed by ByteDance, 5 individuals with data of the corporate mentioned.

Changes to TikTok’s core app and its options run via Zhang; ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo, who was Zhang’s school roommate; Zhao Pengyuan, a ByteDance technique government; and Zhu Wenjia, the top of TikTok’s analysis and growth workforce, the individuals mentioned. ByteDance executives direct TikTok’s growth by seeing what occurs first on Douyin, its Chinese counterpart, they added.

In May, Chew flew to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum, talking with European regulators and ministers from Saudi Arabia to debate digital technique.

More just lately, he has defended TikTok’s information practices. In the app’s June letter to U.S. lawmakers, he famous that ByteDance workers in China might achieve entry to the info of Americans when “subject to a series of robust cybersecurity controls.” But he mentioned TikTok was within the means of separating and securing its U.S. person information beneath an initiative often known as Project Texas, which has the app working with American software program big Oracle.

“We know we’re among the most scrutinized platforms,” Chew wrote.

This article initially appeared in The New York Times.