Who Is Shou Chew? TikTok CEO Who Doesn’t Let His Kids Use App

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is testifying before Congress on why the app shouldn’t be banned in the U.S. amid national security fears, but the 40-year-old Singaporean native takes a different stance in his household—he doesn’t allow his kids to use TikTok.

Personal Background

Chew met his Taiwanese-American wife Vivian Kao while both were attending Harvard. The pair later married and now have two children. The Guardian reported that Chew doesn’t allow his children to use TikTok, allegedly stating they are too young for the social media app.

On Thursday, when questioned by Congresswoman Nanette Barragán on why he “won’t let his eight-year-old child on TikTok,” Chew replied: “I have seen these news articles. Let me address that. My kids live in Singapore and in Singapore, we do not have the under-13 experience. If they lived here in the United States, I would let them use the under-13 experience.”

Chew is providing testimony and answering questions from Congress Thursday. TikTok has faced bipartisan scrutiny for years over its Chinese origins. Legislators have long voiced concerns that the app is a national security threat, alleging that it is potentially providing the Chinese Communist Party with data on millions of Americans, including their whereabouts, and increasing their access to disinformation.

In his written testimony, Chew—a relatively new face in the social media industry with an impressive business background and ties to Harvard and Facebook—said TikTok would never provide data to the CCP if asked. He cited his family life as a reason why data protection is so important, especially for children.

“We take minor safety extremely seriously,” Chew said during a televised interview with The New York Times in November. “One of the first things I did when I took on this role was to make sure that minor safety was at the top of the list.”

The Guardian reported that Chew is fluent in Mandarin and English and serves his country as a reservist in the Singaporean army.

Education and Career

Chew attended Harvard Business School for his master’s in business after earning his bachelor’s from University College London. He jumped into the world of social media early, when he worked as a student intern at Facebook in 2009, five years after the social media network launched. Twelve years later, Chew became the Chief Financial Officer of ByteDance in March 2021, the China-based company that owns TikTok. By May of that year, Chew became CEO of TikTok, Facebook’s biggest competitor.

Chew has a rich business background and launched his career at Goldman Sachs in the U.K. before he moved on to a venture capital firm called DST Global. DST Global eventually served as an early investor in ByteDance, an internet technology company headquartered in Beijing, in 2013.

Chew also worked at Xiaomi, a Chinese smartphone company.

Finances

Celebrity news website The New York Banner reports Chew as having a net worth of $200 million in 2022. The number is a steep contrast compared to other tech titans, such as Facebook founder and CEO of Meta Platforms Mark Zuckerberg who is reported to have a net worth of more than $70 billion. Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO who bought Twitter in 2022 and subsequently became the site’s CEO, has a net worth of $184 billion.

When asked about his total compensation by members of Congress on Thursday, Chew said he preferred to keep the number private.