Disney's Head of Streaming, Kevin Mayer, Becomes TikTok C.E.O.

LOS ANGELES — The Walt Disney Company’s top streaming executive, Kevin Mayer, resigned on Monday to become the chief executive of TikTok, the app for making and sharing short videos that has exploded in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr. Mayer, 58, will also serve as chief operating officer of ByteDance, the Chinese conglomerate that owns TikTok. “I was happy with my job at Disney,” Mr. Mayer said by phone. “The magnitude of this opportunity was just something I couldn’t pass up.” He cited gaming and music as two expansion possibilities. (He sounded considerably less eager to post TikToks of himself.)

TikTok’s app has been downloaded about 1.9 billion times worldwide, including 172 million downloads in the United States, according to Sensor Tower, an app data firm. And its surging popularity has increased during the pandemic. In the first quarter of this year, it was downloaded 307 million times, more than any other app in the world, according to Sensor Tower data.

That popularity has made TikTok by far the biggest digital success for a Chinese-owned company in the Western world. As a result, it has faced deep distrust across the U.S. government. Several government agencies, including nearly all branches of the military, have barred employees from downloading or using the app. In March, Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, proposed legislation to bar any federal employee from using the app.

“.@tiktok_us previously told me they couldn’t attend hearings and testify because executives were located in #China,” Mr. Hawley wrote on Twitter after Mr. Mayer’s hiring was announced. “But this new executive lives in the USA. I look forward to hearing from him. Under oath.”

Both Republicans and Democrats have questioned the Chinese government’s influence over the app. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader, and Senator Tom Cotton, Republican from Arkansas, co-wrote a letter to the director of national intelligence in October, requesting a review of the national-security implications of TikTok’s expanding influence.