Who owns TikTok? The dominance of TikTok as a video hosting service has made a lot of people curious to know who has ownership of the company — and the answer is that ByteDance, a Chinese company, owns TikTok. The current CEO of TikTok is Shou Zi Chew, who is also the CFO of ByteDance.
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Brief History of TikTok’s CEO
As the CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew makes major decisions at TikTok, though he is responsible to the board and ByteDance. Shou Zi Chew was born and raised in Singapore, but attended university in London. He interned at Facebook when Facebook was just starting up. In 2015, Shou Zi became the CFO of Xiaomi, a Chinese tech company. In 2021, he accepted offers to become the CFO of ByteDance and CEO of TikTok.
TikTok Executives
Here are the top executives of TikTok aside from the CEO:
Vanessa Pappas
Vanessa is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of TikTok. As the COO, she oversees the operation, content, marketing, and TikTok’s product team. Vanessa has two Masters’s degrees in Media. Also, she has a background in online media, commercial production, and strategy and development.
Katie Puris
Katie Puris serves as the Managing Director of Global Business Marketing for TikTok. She helps TikTok build a team of creative marketers to boost TikTok’s awareness across the globe. She once worked in tech companies like Facebook, BBDO, and Google before she moved to TikTok. Katie Puris obtained BA in Communications at Loyola University.
Michael Beckerman
Michael Beckerman is the vice president at TikTok. He was an American government technology policy advisor before joining TikTok in 2020 to become the head of public policy in the Americas for TikTok. He received BBA from George Washington University in 2001. Before Michael Beckerman joined TikTok, he was appointed as CEO and president of the Internet Association in July 2012.
Blake Chandlee
Blake Chandlee is the vice president of Global Business Solutions of TikTok. As vice president of Business Solutions of TikTok, he oversees all activities that generate revenue for TikTok. He received a B.Sc. degree in Management from Gettysburg College. He once worked as commercial director of Yahoo UK Ltd.
History of ByteDance
Zhang Yiming and Liang Rubo founded ByteDance company in 2012. The first app the tech company launched is Neihan Duanzi, which is an app where people share humorous content with one another. A lot of people embraced the app as it had more than 200 million users before the Chinese government discontinued the use of the application in 2018.
In August 2012, the company launched Toutiao, a news and content platform. The company started acquiring a number of businesses, though Toutiao remained its major product. Two of the company’s acquisitions in 2017 gave birth to the TikTok we have today. In February 2017 ByteDance acquired Flipagram and merged it with another acquired company known as Musical.ly to create TikTok.
ByteDance already released a Chinese version of TikTok known as Douyin in 2016 before TikTok came into existence. Douyin was already becoming very successful just a few months after it got into the Chinese Market. However, the company wished to expand to international markets, which was why an international version of Douyin was launched in 2017 as TikTok. The user interface of Douyin is almost the same as that of TikTok.
History of TikTok Ownership
Although the ownership of TikTok hasn’t really changed since its incorporation, it’s important to note that Oracle and Walmart were very close to taking over 20% of TikTok Global in 2020. Donald Trump, the former U.S. president, threatened to ban TikTok in the U.S. because he suspected TikTok company could be selling out data of TikTok users within the U.S. or interfering with U.S. affairs. To prevent the ban from taking effect, ByteDance started negotiating with Oracle and Walmart to sell part of TikTok Global to them. That was the only way TikTok could remain functional in the U.S., as the company had to sell its property to an American technology company to continue operating in the U.S.
ByteDance, Oracle, and Walmart reached a favorable agreement. However, legal challenges kept pushing the exact purchase date until Donald Trump left office. The new U.S. president, Joe Biden, revoked Trump’s order to ban TikTok. Since the threat of banning TikTok was no longer in place, ByteDance reversed its decision to sell parts of TikTok Global to Oracle and Walmart. So currently, TikTok remains a 100% privately owned company.
Influence of ByteDance Ownership on TikTok’s Reputation
ByteDance, being a Chinese company, raises some human rights concerns in certain countries, especially in the Western part of the world. The Chinese government has a history of human right violation, which is why some countries find it hard to trust Chinese tech companies like TikTok that have access to people’s data. A few examples of the data TikTok can gather include a user’s mobile carrier, location data, unique device identifiers, IP addresses, and a few other data.
Role of ByteDance in TikTok’s Operations
ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, contributes to the success of TikTok by performing the following:
Oversees Cybersecurity Matters
TikTok will lose credibility if hackers can easily gain unauthorized access to people’s accounts and steal information like emails, IP addresses, private videos, and others. Thus, to prevent such from happening, ByteDance oversees cybersecurity matters on behalf of TikTok.
Oversees Legal Compliance Matters
There are various ways TikTok can get into legal issues if the company doesn’t take precautions. For instance, in 2019, the U.S. fined TikTok $5.7 million for violating children’s privacy. To prevent such occurrences from repeating themselves and other similar legal issues, ByteDance oversees TikTok’s legal compliance issues.
Conclusion
TikTok is 100% privately owned by ByteDance, its parent company. As there are no shareholders of TikTok, the CEO of TikTok, together with other TikTok executives, makes major decisions for the company. ByteDance, the parent company, also oversees operations and matters related to TikTok to ensure its success.