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ByteDance
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ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming quits company board, but remains powerful behind the scenes, sources say

  • Zhang Yiming, 38, is said to have ceded his board seat to Liang Rubo, his successor as CEO of ByteDance
  • Questions over who is in charge of ByteDance and TikTok have repeatedly sparked concerns in Washington

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Zhang Yiming, founder of ByteDance, poses for a photograph at the company's headquarters in Beijing on August 17, 2017. Photo: Bloomberg
Tracy QuandCoco Feng

Zhang Yiming, the 38-year-old billionaire founder of TikTok owner ByteDance, has quit the board of the company, reigniting questions over how much control he will retain over the world’s most valuable unicorn.

Zhang has surrendered his board seat of Caymans-registered ByteDance to new CEO Liang Rubo, his university roommate and long-time collaborator who is taking the reins from Zhang, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who declined to be named as he is not authorised to speak to media.

The news was first reported by Chinese media LatePost on Tuesday night.

ByteDance, which is a private company and has no obligation to publicly disclose changes in its board of directors, declined to comment.

As China’s first globally successful social media operator, ByteDance has repeatedly fielded concerns from Washington over who is ultimately in control of the operations of its wildly popular short video platform TikTok.

During a US congressional hearing last week, Michael Beckerman, TikTok’s head of public policy for the Americas, said that the firm does not share American user data with the Chinese government. Under questioning from Republican Senator Ted Cruz, Beckerman said TikTok has “no affiliation” with ByteDance.

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