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 executive expresses disappointment at how Trump handled the TikTok saga. — SCMP

In the first public recounting of his departure from ByteDance last year, Kevin Mayer, the former Disney executive who was TikTok’s CEO for three months, agreed that he felt “scr***d over” by the Trump administration, according to a transcript of his interview with US television channel CNBC published Wednesday.

Mayer abruptly resigned from his job helming the globally popular short video-sharing app last August, after then-US president Donald Trump signed two executive orders within eight days that sought to force Beijing-based ByteDance to divest TikTok’s operations in the US.