French Billionaire Xavier Niel Joins ByteDance’s Board of Directors

On September 1st, the website of ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, indicated that Philippe Laffont, the founder of Coatue Management, had left the company’s board of directors. Simultaneously, French billionaire and founder of Iliad Telecom Group, Xavier Niel, joined ByteDance’s board.

Xavier Niel, a telecom tycoon with a net worth of billions of dollars, made his mark early on by creating France’s first internet service provider, WorldNet. He later established the Iliad Telecom Group, introduced the Freebox set-top box, purchased a 3G license to enter the telecommunications industry, and fulfilled the dream of reducing telecom costs in France. In September 2022, he acquired a 2.5% stake in British telecommunications company Vodafone through investment firm Atlas Investissement.

This year, ByteDance initiated a new round of stock buybacks: the repurchase price for current employees will be $170 per share, an increase from $160 per share in last year’s repurchase plan. The repurchase price for former employees is $145 per share.

At its peak, ByteDance’s valuation was estimated to exceed $400 billion. Last year, when ByteDance proposed to repurchase $5 billion worth of shares from existing investors at a price of $160 per share, the valuation was approximately $268 billion.

At the beginning of this year, ByteDance held its annual all-staff meeting for 2024. In his share, company CEO Rubo Liang frequently mentioned a “sense of crisis” and listed “strengthening the sense of crisis” as an annual goal. He candidly expressed his biggest concern: worrying that ByteDance, as an organization, is becoming mediocre and unable to make new breakthroughs.

Previous reports indicated that ByteDance was exploring the sale of TikTok. However, ByteDance later stated that the news was false and there were “no plans to sell TikTok”.

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