When Shou Zi Chew stepped in as TikTok's CEO in mid-2021, there was little fanfare. The official @TikTok account didn't even make a TikTok about it. Instead, Chew's introduction to the wider public took place during a barrage of questions at a congressional hearing in Washington, DC, last March. "It was a circus," a TikTok employee told WIRED, speaking under condition of anonymity. "They didn't even let him talk. They had the attitude of 'You're a Chinese spy, and we're gonna beat the shit out of you.'"
You may have seen Chew at another such event in front of grandstanding members of the US Congress last week. So it seems like a good time to share with you WIRED's exclusive interview with the mild-mannered CEO.
As writer Dexter Thomas—who went to meet Chew in December in Arizona, at the company's first ever live music festival—says, "Three things can simultaneously be true: First, that China's government openly watches its citizens and an app with origins there will naturally raise a red flag in many countries, especially in the US. Second, that people have been handing over increasing amounts of data for years, including to companies like Uber and Facebook (both of which have also reportedly tracked journalists), and any company collecting so much user data should be heavily scrutinized. And third, that thinly veiled anti-Chinese xenophobia has become a reliable part of the US political playbook."
Chew, as Thomas writes, "seems to have the right temperament to keep TikTok in various governments' good graces. He gives off none of the abrasive 'tech bro' energy of his peers, instead exuding the folksy persona of someone perpetually running for town mayor."
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