TikTok brought on Ziad Ojakli as its new head of public policy for the Americas after Michael Beckerman bounced from the position he had held for over five years. Ojakli has experience working at Ford, SoftBank and Boeing, plus time in the George W. Bush administration. ByteDance CEO Shou Zi Chew made the announcement through an internal memo.
The hire happens while ByteDance scrambles to offload about 80 percent of TikTok US to American investors before the late January cutoff that Donald Trump set. Oracle and Silver Lake would grab around 50 percent under the current plan, with existing ByteDance shareholders keeping 30 percent and ByteDance itself holding less than 20 percent.
Lawmakers from both parties are skeptical about the whole setup. Democratic Senator Ed Markey called out Trump for sketchy deadline extensions and a lack of clarity on whether China actually signed off on the deal. Republican Representative John Moolenaar thinks any arrangement where China keeps control over the algorithm creates problems.
The hire happens while ByteDance scrambles to offload about 80 percent of TikTok US to American investors before the late January cutoff that Donald Trump set. Oracle and Silver Lake would grab around 50 percent under the current plan, with existing ByteDance shareholders keeping 30 percent and ByteDance itself holding less than 20 percent.
Lawmakers from both parties are skeptical about the whole setup. Democratic Senator Ed Markey called out Trump for sketchy deadline extensions and a lack of clarity on whether China actually signed off on the deal. Republican Representative John Moolenaar thinks any arrangement where China keeps control over the algorithm creates problems.
