By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -TikTok said Tuesday it had named former Boeing government affairs chief Ziad Ojakli as the short video app’s head of public policy for the Americas as it works to complete a deal to separate its U.S. assets from its parent company.
The move comes as TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance is working to sell about an 80% stake in its U.S. assets to a consortium of U.S. and global investors to meet the national security requirements set out in a 2024 law. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in September giving them until late January to complete the deal.
Ojakli, who previously oversaw government affairs at Ford Motor and Softbank , will begin his new role Dec. 1, TikTok CEO Shou Chew said in a memo announcing the hiring Tuesday. He noted that current public policy chief Michael Beckerman, a key figure in the company’s fight against a U.S. government ban, said in April he planned to leave his role and move into a global advisory role.
TikTok faces questions about the divestiture plan.
Representative John Moolenaar, the Republican chair of the House Select Committee on China, said in October a licensing agreement for use of the TikTok algorithm would raise “serious concerns.” Democratic Senator Ed Markey also asked questions about the deal this week.
Moolenaar said he would host the leadership of the new US TikTok entity at a hearing next year.
Trump’s order said the algorithm will be retrained and monitored by the U.S. company’s security partners, and operation of the algorithm will be under the control of the new joint venture.
A group of three investors, including Oracle and private-equity firm Silver Lake, will take a roughly 50% stake in TikTok U.S., Reuters reported in September, while a group of existing shareholders in ByteDance will hold a roughly 30% stake.
ByteDance would hold less than 20% in TikTok U.S. to comply with requirements detailed in the 2024 law.
(Reporting by David Shepardson, Editing by Franklin Paul and Nick Zieminski)
