Far away from the tough scrutiny he faced in Washington DC, TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew was milking the crowd as he was feted at an event in Indonesia this month.
Dressed in a traditional batik shirt, the Singaporean embraced an enthusiastic audience in the capital Jakarta. Amid flashing disco lights and upbeat music, he declared to applause from government officials and fans that TikTok would “invest billions” in south-east Asia. Indonesia specifically would receive $10bn in investment from TikTok over the next five years, he said.
The celebratory occasion was in stark contrast to the regulatory one he faced last March in the US. Shou — this time in a suit — endured a five-hour grilling in a bipartisan pummelling from a congressional committee on Capitol Hill. His wildly popular short-form video app, owned by China’s ByteDance, was described variously as a “cancer” and a surveillance tool.