TikTok CEO Fails to "Tok" His Way Out of Trouble, Intensifying Calls for Ban 🕺

Calls for banning TikTok have reached critical mass, with more and more governments barring either employees or lawmakers from installing the social media app on their phones. But the largest battleground for the company remains the US, by far the biggest market for the Chinese company with 150 million users.

To help assuage fears that his company is doing something illegal and is sharing user data with the Chinese government, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appeared before a U.S. House Committee to answer lawmakers' concerns. That meeting did not go as planned, with both Democrats and Republicans grilling the CEO about national security and other concerns involving the app.

Worse still, Chew's appearance had the opposite effect, resulting in even louder calls for banning TikTok across the U.S. over concerns that the Chinese government could access users' data at will. And the U.S. Congress seems more than eager to comply.

Banning TikTok or taking some sort of action against the company may come off as extreme by some, but this wouldn't be the first time the U.S. government takes action against a business due to its coziness with the Chinese government. America did the same with Huawei, effectively keeping it out of American soil, and may be on a path to do the same with TikTok.

Amazon Announces Thousands of New Layoffs 📦

Looks like Amazon has decided to walk the same path as Meta, announcing another round of layoffs that will affect thousands of employees.

CEO Andy Jassy announced last week that the e-commerce behemoth will be eliminating 9,000 positions on top of the 18,000 announced just a few months ago. Most of the new layoffs will be in the cloud computing, human resources, advertising, and Twitch livestreaming businesses, and are prompted by aggressive hiring during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Essentially, Amazon, just like every other internet company out there, hired way too many people and is now looking to shed the excess in hopes of becoming lean again. "For several years leading up to this one, most of our businesses added a significant amount of headcount. This made sense given what was happening in our businesses and the economy as a whole. However, given the uncertain economy in which we reside, and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount," Jassy said in a memo sent to employees.

The layoffs will likely return Amazon to profitability after it posted a net loss of $2.72 billion in 2022.

Amazon ranked #19 in this week's Tech Company Rankings.

In Other News.. 📰

• Elon Musk thinks Twitter, which ranked #17 this week, is worth less than half of what he paid for the social media company.
• Microsoft does not want its competitors to use its internet-search data to train their own AI products.
• Apple CEO Tim Cook is visiting China, and can't stop saying nice things about the country 🥲. Apple ranked #7 this week.
• Intel co-founder Gordon Moore has passed away. 😞

And that's a wrap! Don't forget to share this newsletter with your family and friends! See y'all next week. PEACE! ☮️

— Sheharyar Khan, Editor, Business Tech @ HackerNoon