V. Pappas, the chief operating officer of TikTok, has resigned, as first reported by The Information. In a memo Pappas posted to Twitter, they informed staff that they will no longer work as COO of the company, as they believe the "time is right to move on and refocus." Pappas will still stay at TikTok in an advisory role.
"Given all the successes reached at TikTok, I finally feel the time is right to move on and refocus on my entrepreneurial passions," Pappas writes. "Few had imagined what the last five years would look like and with all the incredible innovation happening now with generative AI, robotics, renewable energy, genomics, blockchain and the IoT, clearly the future will again look much different."
The news of Pappas' resignation comes as TikTok faces renewed government scrutiny over the ties of its parent company, ByteDance, to China. Last month, Eric Han, TikTok's head of trust and safety in the US, announced that he was leaving the company.
When reached for comment, TikTok provided The Verge with an emailed copy of the memo CEO Shou Zi Chew sent to employees.
Pappas, for many years, was effectively the US face of TikTok, making announcements for the company and speaking about its upcoming strategy and programming. More recently, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has taken a more prominent and public role, appearing before Congress and even popping up in TikTok videos to talk directly to users.
Prior to TikTok, Pappas worked at YouTube for close to eight years, heading audience and insights teams. They became the US general manager of TikTok in 2018. Pappas was the interim CEO of TikTok for a short period of time, starting in 2020, before becoming COO in April 2021.
Several states across the US are taking steps to ban TikTok, with Montana being the first to sign a bill to ban the app starting next year. The federal government is also looking to put restrictions on the app across the country with the proposed bipartisan RESTRICT Act.
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