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If you’re finding value in our Creator Economy newsletter, I encourage you to consider subscribing to The Information. It contains exclusive reporting on the most important stories in tech. Save up to $250 on your first year of access. Hello! Sylvia here. If TikTok does eventually sell its U.S. business, who is going to lead the new company? That’s a question we’ve been mulling as TikTok nears the September 17 deadline for a law to go into effect that will ban the video app in the U.S. unless it breaks off from its Chinese parent company. And now we have a little more insight into the possible structure. As a quick recap: A group of non-Chinese investors have a deal in place to take over TikTok’s U.S. operations and form a new company that will own TikTok U.S. There is also a new version of the TikTok app in the works for U.S. users. But the arrangement has yet to be approved by China—a necessary step that’s been complicated by tariffs and trade talks. If the deal does close, a new board will be appointed, with seats reflecting the new ownership structure of the company, according to a person with knowledge of the plans. That means TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, which is set to take a just under 20% stake in the new TikTok U.S. entity, could get a seat. Other seats are likely to be filled by some major investors in the new entity, which could include existing investors Susquehanna International Group and General Atlantic and new investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, as well as tech partner Oracle. The newly appointed board will then have the power to choose a CEO. Who could it be? It’s all hypothetical, of course, until the deal goes through and the board is assembled. But if TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew remains as head of the global TikTok business, it seems like they would probably need someone else to run the U.S. company, whether an internal or an external hire. One high-profile former social media CEO, Linda Yaccarino, of X, just took a new gig as the head of a weight-loss drug company. Then there’s Kevin Mayer, who served as TikTok’s CEO for a hot minute back in 2020. We also recently reported on the internal ascent of TikTok executive Adam Presser. If you have other guesses, send them our way! A TikTok spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. As for the deal itself, talks between the Chinese and U.S. governments have not progressed of late, the person with knowledge of the situation said, though the topic has come up in ongoing trade talks, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently told CNBC. The delays could create a predicament for Trump, who has promised to “save” TikTok but has so far only managed to issue a string of executive orders staving off enforcement of the law. Earlier this month, Democratic senator Ed Markey proposed a bill that would allow TikTok to get around the law and continue to operate in the U.S. under certain conditions. The bill is unlikely to go anywhere, though, and Trump would be reluctant to let anyone else take credit for keeping TikTok up and running. And so we wait. The clock is ticking! Now on to Kaya for what else is going on… See The Information’s Creator Economy Database for an exclusive list of private companies and their investors. Rumble, the video company popular with conservatives that hosts President Trump’s Truth Social, is considering a $1.2 billion acquisition of Northern Data, which runs a cloud and data center business, Reuters reported. Studio Atelico, which develops an AI engine for video games, raised $5 million in seed funding from Air Street Capital and angel investors. OpenArt, an AI video generation startup, raised $5 million in funding from Basis Set Ventures and DCM Ventures. YouTube pledged $3 million to a fund to support YouTubers and other creative professionals in Los Angeles who were impacted by wildfires earlier this year. ICYMI: Meta Platforms acquired WaveForms AI, which is developing AI capable of understanding emotion and mimicking it in audio form, The Information reported. That’s the number of monthly active users now using Threads, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday. That’s up by 50 million since April. Taylor Swift will appear on boyfriend Travis Kelce’s podcast “New Heights” on Wednesday for the first time. Ahead of the appearance, a teaser of the episode shared on Instagram doubled as an announcement for her latest album, “The Life of a Showgirl.” TBPN, the daily live tech and business show hosted by John Coogan and Jordi Hayes, launched on Substack. They plan to publish a plan of their show in the mornings, as well as posting daily recaps and holding live video sessions on Substack with other creators. Lee Tilghman, an early wellness influencer on Instagram known online as Lee From America, published a memoir called “If You Don’t Like This, I Will Die” on Tuesday about the downsides of the influencer industry. Ari Kytsya, an OnlyFans creator, is a new brand ambassador for L’Oreal’s makeup brand Urban Decay, which is sparking backlash from a U.K. women’s rights group, according to The Guardian. Meta Platforms settled a defamation suit with conservative influencer Robby Starbuck, who alleged the company’s AI chatbot falsely claimed he participated in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. As part of the settlement, Meta appointed Starbuck an adviser to Meta to address “ideological and political bias” in its AI tools, according to The Wall Street Journal. Instagram’s new map feature announced last week, which shows locations of friends, is already under government scrutiny. In a letter on Friday, Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal called for Meta to remove the map feature and implement “more robust and transparent safety measures.” TikTok employees in Germany are striking over mass layoffs on the company’s trust and safety team. TikTok is planning to shut down its content moderation team in Berlin and outsource the work to AI and contractors, The Guardian reported. Reddit is limiting the Internet Archive’s access to Reddit posts because it says AI companies have scraped its data from the nonprofit’s Wayback Machine, The Verge reported. Namsun Kim, executive chairman of Poshmark, will become the fashion resale marketplace’s CEO on October 1. Poshmark’s current CEO and founder, Manish Chandra, will move to a “strategic role” on the company’s board. Jason Kingston-Brown joined creator upfront funding startup Viewture as head of sales and creative strategy. Previously, he held senior roles at creator economy startups including Jellysmack. Thank you for reading the Creator Economy Newsletter! I’d love your feedback, ideas and tips: kaya@theinformation.com. If you think someone else might enjoy this newsletter, please pass it forward or they can sign up here: https://www.theinformation.com/newsletters/creator-economy
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