A survey of TikTok users conducted late last year by the investment bank TD Cowen showed that, in the event of a ban, more than half of users said they would reallocate the time they spent on TikTok to YouTube or Instagram.
People who were spending hours a day on TikTok are “not just going to go away and replace that time with reading a book or something,” said John Blackledge, an analyst at TD Cowen. “They’re going to go to a platform. They’re going to find content.”
TikTok employees and executives have left the company ahead of the ban. TikTok had an estimated 17,000 people working in the United States as of late 2024, according to Live Data Technologies, which tracks employment and job changes. But as the ban loomed, turnover at the company jumped 38 percent in the second half of the year compared with 2023.
-Some top TikTok executives, including its head of North American ad sales and the general manager of its U.S. agency business, recently left the company. Sandie Hawkins, TikTok’s head of ecommerce in the United States, exited in late 2023 to take a break from the company’s fast pace, she said. During the three and a half years she spent at the company, there was a recurring threat of TikTok being banned, she recalled.
“Anytime there was a news cycle, we would tell the team to focus on what was in your control,” Ms. Hawkins said.
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