SAN FRANCISCO - Chinese Internet giant ByteDance Inc is seeking a new chief executive officer for its TikTok business, a hugely popular video app that American politicians have targeted as a potential security threat.
A spokesman for TikTok declined to comment. Heidrick & Struggles didn't respond to a request for comment. Beijing-based ByteDance, led by CEO Yiming Zhang, has built TikTok and Douyin into some of the world's most popular apps with more than a billion users between them who share short video clips of things like lip-syncing and dance videos. That has made ByteDance the most valuable tech startup in the world, challenging the dominance of US companies like Facebook and Snap.
ByteDance is weighing a range of options to address those concerns, from an aggressive legal defence to the sale of a stake in TikTok, Bloomberg News reported in December. A representative for the company said at the time there have been no discussions about any partial or full sale of TikTok.