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TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer quits company: statement

Ahmed Aiham
27 August 2020, MVT 17:50
(FILES) In this file photo Kevin Mayer, chairman of direct-to-consumer and international business at The Walt Disney Company, attends the annual Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference, July 12, 2018 in Sun Valley, Idaho. - TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer said August 26 he has quit the wildly popular social media platform. His resignation comes after US President Donald Trump claimed the video app could be used to spy on Americans and ordered a crackdown on the Chinese-owned company. (Photo by Drew Angerer / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP)
Ahmed Aiham
27 August 2020, MVT 17:50

TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer said Wednesday he has quit the company as tensions soar between Washington and Beijing over the Chinese-owned video platform.

Mayer's resignation comes days after TikTok filed a lawsuit challenging a crackdown by the US government over claims the wildly popular social media app can be used to spy on Americans.

TikTok has been at the center of a diplomatic storm between the US and China, and President Donald Trump signed an executive order on August 6 giving Americans 45 days to stop doing business with TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance -- effectively setting a deadline for a sale of the app to a US company.

TikTok, which has been downloaded 175 million times in the US and more than a billion times around the world, argued in the suit that Trump's order was a misuse of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act because the platform -- on which users share often playful short-form videos -- is not "an unusual and extraordinary threat."

Former Disney executive Mayer, who has only been in the post since May, said in a letter to staff that the "political environment has sharply changed" in recent weeks.

"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 wrote.

"I understand that the role that I signed up for -- including running TikTok globally -- will look very different as a result of the US administration's action to push for a sell-off of the US business."

TikTok 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. We thank him for his time at the company and wish him well."

Los Angeles, United States | AFP

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