TikTok is getting rid of the lawyer tasked with convincing the American government that its business doesn't threaten national security, according to a report that surfaced just hours after the House of Representatives passed a bill to crack down on the popular, Chinese-owned social media website.
Attorney Erich Andersen, the U.S.-based general counsel of TikTok and its corporate parent ByteDance Ltd., is still with the company, which plans to remove him from that role, Bloomberg reported Saturday night, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.
Andersen referred questions to a TikTok spokesperson, who called Bloomberg's reporting "100% false."
Andersen has led several years of talks with U.S. officials to try to assure them that TikTok was preventing China from accessing data on its American users or influencing what they see on the site, Bloomberg said.
But suspicious House lawmakers on Saturday approved a measure that would require TikTok to be sold or face a nationwide ban in the U.S.
The bill is widely expected to pass the Senate and be signed into law by President Joe Biden.
A TikTok spokesperson called Saturday's development "unfortunate" and said it would "trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the U.S. economy annually."
Andersen was hired by TikTok in January 2020 after more than two decades at Microsoft, where he rose to the rank of corporate vice president and chief intellectual property counsel, according to an announcement at the time.
His "deep experience" was touted by then-TikTok President Alex Zhu as an "excellent asset as we work to further build trust with regulators, policymakers, users and partners."
