How much we know about the Chinese owner of TikTok?

A controversial bill has been passed in the US Congress, through which the Chinese owner of TikTok, ByteDance, has been given six months to give up its ownership of TikTok in the United States. If not, TikTok may be shut down in the country. 

Since the arrival of Donald Trump, such a large measure against TikTok has not been taken in the United States. Last December, the market value of TikTok was 268 billion or 26 thousand 8 billion dollars.

What is ByteDance?

ByteDance is the original owner of TikTok. The company releases apps so frequently that it's nicknamed the App Factory. In 2012, software engineer Zhang Yiming launched this company in Beijing, the capital city of China.

ByteDance is recognized as the world's leading algorithm company. Their apps like TikTok, Douyin and Toutiao can work by understanding customer needs; That's why they are so appealing to customers.

ByteDance's first popular app was Toutiao-launched in 2012, the app is primarily a news aggregator, i.e. the app's algorithm gathers news in one place that customers like.

TikTok's companion app Douyin was launched in China in 2016. The app became a huge success soon after its launch; Within a year of its launch, the app crossed 100 million users.

In 2017, TikTok was launched as an international version of Douyin. ByteDance, however, says that the app was created as two different products, with the same logo and interface design.

Founder, CEO and major investor of TikTok 

ByteDance founder Zhang was born in Fujian, China's southwestern coastal province. He studied software engineering at Nankai University in Tianjin. Before founding ByteDance, he worked at various technology companies, including Microsoft, although he did not stay at Microsoft for long.

In the early days of ByteDance, Zhang mainly spent most of his time following Toutiao and Douyin in Beijing. But since the Covid-19 pandemic, he has been spending more time outside the country. According to Reuters, Zhang is now primarily based in Singapore and working from there.

Zhang resigned as CEO of ByteDance in 2021; Liang Rubo, the co-founder of the company and his university classmate took the responsibility. 

On taking over, Zhang Yiming said he lacked the social skills needed to be an ideal manager. As a result, he moved away from the spotlight and worked on the company's long-term strategy formulation.

According to a report published by TikTok in May last year, 60 percent of TikTok is owned by companies such as Carlyle Group, General Atlantic and Susquehanna International Group; 20 percent shares are held by workers and the rest by Zhang.

However, even after Zhang stepped down as CEO, he still holds 50 percent voting rights on ByteDance's board.

Relations with the Chinese government

What happens to various corporates, including big tech companies in China, is happened to ByteDance. In 2014, a branch of the Communist Party opened in Bytedance; Then the Chinese government took 1 percent ownership in a local subsidiary of ByteDance. At the same time, the Chinese government also took a seat on the company's board of directors.

Basically, ByteDance fell under the control of the US government during the time of the former US President Donald Trump. In 2020, the US government issued an executive order to try to force TikTok to sell the company's US assets. However, the US government's efforts were thwarted by court intervention.

After that attempt by Donald Trump, TikTok brought some changes. The company revised the list of technologies that require government approval for export. However, this changes their algorithm. 

US government officials have since raised questions about TikTok's security and privacy. They alleged that information on TikTok's US users could be sought from Beijing. But TikTok said it had not received such requests or handed over US users' data to the Chinese government.

However, to take this concern into account, TikTok arranges to store the data of US users in that country. For that they made an agreement with the American company Oracle; Since 2020 they have been storing data of US users in that country.

Now that the bill has been passed to ban TikTok in US. On the other hand, the company has announced that it will continue its legal fight against it.