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TikTok didn't shy away from hiring employees from China last year, even as US officials accused the app of being a national security risk because its owner, ByteDance, is headquartered in Beijing.
Of the roughly 1,000 non-US employees that TikTok and ByteDance sought to hire for its US teams via H-1B visa applications between October 2022 and September 2023, most were from China.
Companies use the H-1B program to hire foreign workers who have business skills that they say they cannot otherwise obtain from the existing US workforce.
Six hundred and sixty-nine of the 1,089 approved H-1B hires for TikTok and ByteDance last fiscal year were from China, a 50% increase from the previous year, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services data obtained by Business Insider via a Freedom of Information Act request. The federal government's fiscal year runs from October through September.
Fourteen of those 669 approved hires were recruited to work under TikTok's US Data Security Division, or USDS, a section of the company dedicated to keeping US user data out of the hands of the Chinese Communist Party and other actors that the US government has deemed a foreign adversary. Those roles included work in data science, fraud strategy, systems analysis, and software engineering.
While TikTok is by far ByteDance's most popular app in the US, the company also operates other platforms such as its Pinterest-like app Lemon8, which some H-1B hires may have been tasked with working on.
TikTok and ByteDance's 50% year-over-year jump in approved H-1B applications for Chinese nationals came despite US Sen. Tom Cotton raising concerns about having "foreign individuals work at ByteDance and TikTok's offices in California."
"Given the security concerns with TikTok and the company's repeated statements about 'US-based' teams and data centers, having hundreds of foreign nationals working in those offices presents another potential threat," Cotton wrote in a November 2022 letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.
TikTok and ByteDance did not respond to requests for comment.
Using the H-1B program to recruit talent from China isn't unusual on its own. Among applications for H-1B visas across all companies in fiscal year 2023, it was the second most common country of origin, per data published by the USCIS. But TikTok and ByteDance's H-1B recruiting efforts dramatically over-indexed toward China. Only 12% of all approved fiscal year 2023 H-1B applications were for Chinese nationals, compared to 61% of TikTok and ByteDance's approved applications.
India ranked second among countries where TikTok and ByteDance earned H-1B approvals in fiscal year 2023, followed by Taiwan, Canada, and Vietnam.
TikTok has been under heavy scrutiny for years due to its owner's roots in China. US officials have raised concerns that ByteDance could be compelled to hand over TikTok's US user data to the Chinese government in order to comply with a National Intelligence Law. Some have worried that TikTok could be used as a propaganda tool to further the CCP's interests.
In April, Congress passed a law that gave ByteDance a deadline for divesting TikTok's US assets. If it fails to do so, TikTok could be removed from US app stores in January. TikTok is challenging the law in court, but legal experts previously told BI it's not looking promising for the company. President-elect Trump pledged on the campaign trail to "never ban TikTok," but his paths to rescuing the app are limited.
TikTok has previously said it does not share information with the Chinese government, and that its content moderation efforts are run by a US-based team that "operates independently from China."
While it may not be politically advantageous for TikTok to recruit talent from China, it makes sense given the company operates closely with its parent ByteDance.
Even as TikTok has taken steps to downplay its association with China, its owner, ByteDance, continues to operate in the US. Current and former TikTok employees told BI in 2021 that final product decisions for TikTok were often made by ByteDance staffers in Beijing. And TikTok staffers are asked to adhere to core workplace values it calls "ByteStyles."
The company has also used TikTok's Chinese sister app, Douyin, as a testing ground for features that ultimately end up on TikTok. Recently, the company has matched vendors with expertise in e-commerce in China to its US partners that work with sellers and influencers on its social-shopping feature, TikTok Shop. Several of its approved 2023 H-1B applications for Chinese nationals were for roles in e-commerce, including a creator manager role focused on live shopping and software engineering roles tied to shopping ads.
