Former TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer speaks publicly for the first time on his exit from ByteDance
- Mayer, who resigned last year as TikTok’s CEO after three months on the job, talks about his abrupt departure
- The former ByteDance executive expresses disappointment at how former US president Donald Trump handled the TikTok saga
In the first public recounting of his departure from ByteDance last year, Kevin Mayer, a former executive of The Walt Disney Company who served as TikTok’s CEO for three months, agreed that he felt “screwed over” by the Trump administration, according to a transcript of his interview with US television channel CNBC published on Wednesday.
As soon as the news emerged, Mayer said he knew his new job – a dual role that also put him in charge of ByteDance’s operations as the chief operating officer – would vanish.
“It did look as if that was a serious ruling by the [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] guys, that it had to be divested and it was going to be divested,” he told CNBC, referring to the US panel that reviews acquisitions by foreign businesses for potential national security risks.
“It’s true that the job that I signed up for was going to be gone. And in the next few days was going to be gone. It was, like, extremely imminent,” he said.
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