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Just three months after being hired, TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer has announced he will be resigning from the position. Mayer had previously served as the chairman of direct-to-consumer & international division at Disney.
Mayer’s resignation comes at a time where President Donald Trump is pressuring the social media app with an executive order urging TikTok to sell by September 15 or else it will be banned.
“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, via the New York Times. “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.”
Vanessa Pappas, the general manager of TikTok in North America, will replace Mayer as interim CEO.
TikTok is based in Beijing and owned by the tech company ByteDance. It has been downloaded over 110 million times in the United States.
The company, however, claims that its servers are based out of China and that they are committed to transparency for its users. The app is also not available within China.
“At TikTok, we take these issues incredibly seriously as well. We are committed to transparency and accountability in how we support our TikTok users in the US and around the world,” the statement from TikTok read. “TikTok does not remove content based on sensitivities related to China. We have never been asked by the Chinese government to remove any content and we would not do so if asked. Period.”
TikTok was first launched in 2017 and is available for download on iOS and Android devices. Earlier this year, TikTok hit one billion downloads globally with the app available in over 150 markets and 75 languages.
