TikTok’s new CEO brings Hollywood connections, ByteDance loyalty

Published Sat, Jan 24, 2026 · 09:02 AM

TIKTOK picked an insider to lead its newly created US business, choosing an executive with deep ties to the entertainment world and history reporting up to ByteDance’s leadership.

Adam Presser, a longtime right hand to TikTok’s global leader Shou Chew, was tapped to lead the new entity, officially dubbed TikTok US Data Security Joint Venture, which spun out from parent ByteDance to avoid a US ban over national security concerns. 

The top job puts Presser at the helm of a social media phenomenon worth at least US$14 billion and used by more than half of the US – a market where it holds immense social and cultural relevance. US President Donald Trump has credited TikTok with helping him reclaim the White House in 2024. 

While Presser is a relative unknown in many tech circles, he’s been near the pinnacle of the company leading operations for several years, and was widely seen as the most influential US-based leader at TikTok. He’s long been viewed as a key contender for the top job, according to a person familiar with the company, and is seen by insiders as a US-based extension of Chew, who is based in Singapore. Presser has been reporting directly to Chew, who in turn reports to ByteDance co-founder and chief executive officer, Liang Rubo, the person said.

Presser has deep ties to the entertainment world, and experience working in China. He attended Harvard-Westlake in Los Angeles, one of the city’s most prestigious high schools, before going on to attain both undergraduate and graduate degrees from Yale where he studied Chinese languages and literatures and East Asian studies. Presser then went on to Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School, according to his LinkedIn.

After a few years working at Ticketmaster Entertainment, in China, Presser spent more than five years at WarnerMedia, eventually becoming executive vice president of the company’s international operations, including in China. He joined TikTok in 2022 as the chief of staff to the CEO, and was appointed head of operations the following year, taking on more influence and also working closely with TikTok’s teams focused on content creators. 

Presser continued to climb internally, adding trust and safety responsibilities to his remit in March 2024, according to LinkedIn. It was around that time that Congress passed a national security bill requiring TikTok to sever ties with ByteDance in the US market, or face a ban, making the work of TikTok’s US-based data protection arm, USDS, a top priority. Presser took over as general manager leading TikTok USDS while deal negotiations were underway, telegraphing his eventual appointment as CEO of the new joint venture.

Presser has also been front and center in dealing with TikTok’s content moderation issues over the years. When a group of high profile influencers and celebrities confronted TikTok in 2023 to demand the company to do more to combat antisemitism, Presser led the call for TikTok and fielded their complaints. “We can do better,” he told them at the time.

Presser does not have a background in politics, but his new role is likely to thrust him into Trump’s orbit. The Trump administration largely steered the deal process over the past year, negotiating a US future for the app and continually delaying a potential ban. Trump is a fan of the app, and believes it helped him reach young voters and was key in his election to a second term.

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“I am so happy to have helped in saving TikTok!” the president wrote on Truth Social when the deal closed this week. “It will now be owned by a group of Great American Patriots and Investors, the Biggest in the World, and will be an important Voice.” Trump also thanked Chinese President Xi Jinping for helping push the deal across. 

“I only hope that long into the future I will be remembered by those who use and love TikTok,” Trump wrote. 

The new US TikTok entity that Presser will lead is responsible for protecting US user data, moderating content and securing a content recommendation algorithm that will be leased from ByteDance and eventually retrained on American TikTokers’ data. He is also charged with driving business growth for TikTok and other ByteDance-owned apps in the US, including its AI-powered editing platform CapCut and social lifestyle platform Lemon8. Chew will remain CEO of the rest of TikTok’s global business outside the US joint venture, and ByteDance will retain control over the most lucrative parts of its US empire, including TikTok’s advertising and online shopping arms.

Presser was a prominent voice in TikTok’s initial effort to thwart a sale. In a 2024 legal filing, Presser argued that “a severance of the US TikTok platform from the rest of the globally integrated TikTok platform and business is not feasible.” He listed the commercial and technical reasons TikTok US couldn’t be completely untangled from ByteDance.

“The US TikTok platform would become an ‘island’ where Americans would have an experience isolated from the rest of the global platform,” Presser said. The app would be less attractive to global advertisers and creators, and wouldn’t generate enough revenue to make a US-only TikTok financially sustainable, he added.

TikTok did not respond to a request for comment. BLOOMBERG