TikTok‘s general manager of agency business for its U.S. arm left the social media platform.
This comes as a pending law would pressure China-based ByteDance to sell TikTok for the social media platform to be hosted by app stores in the United States. President Joe Biden signed the bill into law, but it will not go into effect until Jan. 19. President-elect Donald Trump has made it clear he would like the Supreme Court to stop the ban from going into effect.
TikTok is owned by ByteDance. The law would allow the president to decide which countries are deemed “foreign adversaries” and thus ban their apps from app stores.
Jack Bamberger’s last day was Friday, according to two sources cited by Adweek. Bamberger, the former general manager, joined in March 2024 to act as the middleman between the platform and its U.S. advertisers. TikTok’s North American head of ad sales, Sameer Singh, also left in recent weeks.
Member of Congress have also seemingly changed their minds about the platform and altered course in their usage. Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL) last posted in March 2024. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) last posted in 2023 and has since removed his profile photo. Both Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) last posted in 2022. Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Raphael Warnock (D-GA) have not posted on the platform since they won their respective races in 2022. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) last posted in 2021. Reps. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) and Bennie Thompson (D-MS) have created accounts and made the effort to verify themselves but have not posted.
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In the weeks after Biden signed the law, TikTok filed a lawsuit alleging that the ban would violate the platform’s First Amendment rights. That lawsuit was followed by another similar lawsuit filed by TikTok users. A U.S. appeals court upheld the law, but TikTok lawyers asked the Supreme Court to grant an injunction until it could consider the case.
Trump joined the platform in the final months of his 2024 campaign and credits TikTok for his win. He asked the Supreme Court to prioritize hearings in this case, which are now scheduled for Friday.