TikTok
Leadership History
4 leaders · 2020 to present
Shou Zi Chew is the CEO of TikTok, in the role since 2021. The first chief executive was Kevin Mayer, from 2020.
| Name | Role | From | To | Years in role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adam Presser | CEO, TikTok USDS Joint Venture | 2026 | Present | < 1 |
| Shou Zi Chew | Chief Executive Officer, TikTok | 2021 | Present | 5 |
| Liang Rubo | CEO, ByteDance | 2021 | Present | 5 |
| Kevin Mayer | Chief Executive Officer | 2020 | 2020 | < 1 |
TikTok is ByteDance's global short-video platform, led by CEO Shou Zi Chew since 2021. Its U.S. operations have run through the TikTok USDS Joint Venture since January 2026, under CEO Adam Presser. Bloomberg estimated ByteDance's international revenue, mostly TikTok, at about $39 billion in 2024. ByteDance reports more than 150,000 employees worldwide. TikTok's own headcount is not disclosed. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, California.
TikTok makes money in three main ways. Advertising is the largest: brands and performance marketers buy in-feed video ads, Spark Ads, TopView placements and branded effects through TikTok Ads Manager. TikTok Shop earns referral commissions and service fees on products sold through shoppable videos, LIVE shopping and creator affiliate links, and is the fastest-growing line according to reporting on ByteDance's 2025 results. LIVE generates revenue when viewers buy coins to send virtual gifts to creators, with TikTok keeping a share. In the U.S., the TikTok USDS Joint Venture handles data protection, trust and safety and algorithm security, while ByteDance-linked TikTok entities continue to run global advertising and commerce interoperability. Standalone revenue by stream is not disclosed.
CEO, TikTok USDS Joint Venture
2026 – Present
0 years (current)
Presser managed the aggressive scaling of TikTok's global trust and safety operations amid intense scrutiny from US regulators regarding child safety and data privacy.
He built out the operational framework required to moderate billions of user-generated videos, significantly expanding the localized moderation teams.
Chief Executive Officer, TikTok
2021 – Present
5 years (current)
Chew became CEO in 2021 and led TikTok through TikTok Shop's global rollout, Project Texas with Oracle, his 2023 and 2024 congressional testimony, and the negotiations that produced the U.S. joint venture in January 2026.
Global TikTok CEO since 2021; former ByteDance and Xiaomi CFO.
CEO, ByteDance
2021 – Present
5 years (current)
As ByteDance CEO, Liang managed the complex legal and structural separation of TikTok's US data operations (Project Texas) to appease American lawmakers.
He maintained TikTok's explosive global revenue growth and defended its algorithmic intellectual property despite facing unprecedented sovereign bans in India and the US.
Chief Executive Officer
2020 – 2020
0 years
Mayer abruptly resigned as CEO after only three months when the Trump administration threatened to ban TikTok unless it was sold to a US company.
Despite his brief tenure, his high-profile recruitment from Disney briefly validated TikTok's ambitions to become a mainstream US entertainment and streaming powerhouse.
TikTok's main risks are regulatory and political: the new U.S. joint venture still faces congressional questions about how independent its algorithm is from ByteDance, European regulators keep scrutinizing data transfers to China, and child-safety rules are tightening in the EU, UK and Australia. Commercially, it competes for time and ad budgets with Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, and TikTok Shop has to win merchant trust against Amazon, Temu and Shein.
Shou Zi Chew serves as Chief Executive Officer of TikTok, having held the position since May 2021, leading the app through global monetization expansion, international regulatory negotiations, and U.S. corporate restructuring.
Born in Singapore, Chew earned a degree from University College London and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He worked at Goldman Sachs, served as a partner at DST Global, and was Chief Financial Officer and International President of smartphone giant Xiaomi.
In January 2026, tech executive Adam Presser—previously TikTok's Head of Operations and Trust & Safety—was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the independent TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, overseeing American data governance and operations.
Former Disney streaming chief Kevin Mayer was hired as TikTok CEO and ByteDance COO in May 2020. However, when President Trump issued an executive order threatening an immediate ban or forced sale in August 2020, Mayer resigned after just three months.
Vanessa Pappas, a former YouTube executive, stepped in as interim head of TikTok in August 2020 following Kevin Mayer's sudden exit, later serving as Chief Operating Officer until 2023, steering public communications and creator relations.
Alex Zhu co-founded Musical.ly in 2014 and served as head of TikTok following ByteDance's 2017 buyout, helping merge Musical.ly into TikTok before transitioning to ByteDance's product and strategy leadership.
Zhang Yiming founded ByteDance in 2012 and served as its global CEO for nine years, pioneering algorithmic news app Toutiao, Douyin, and TikTok. He stepped down as CEO in 2021 to focus on long-term corporate strategy and philanthropy.
Liang Rubo, college roommate and co-founder alongside Zhang Yiming, succeeded him as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ByteDance in late 2021, overseeing parent company operations, enterprise AI, and global investments.
Chew testified solo for over five hours before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, maintaining calm under aggressive bipartisan questioning regarding data ties to China, user mental health, and Project Texas firewalls.
Shou Zi Chew reports to ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo while directing TikTok's global corporate strategy; in the United States, Adam Presser directs USDS Joint Venture compliance alongside an independent American board majority.
Chew is focused on scaling TikTok Shop into a global multi-hundred-billion-dollar social commerce juggernaut, expanding creator monetization, investing in multimodal AI tools, and cementing regulatory compliance in Western markets.
Chew is based at TikTok's global corporate headquarters in Singapore, frequently traveling between executive hubs in Culver City, New York, London, and Washington, D.C.
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