Erich Andersen, General Counsel for TikTok and its parent company ByteDance, today announced that he will be stepping down from his role in June to take on the role of special counsel to the company. In that role, he will focus on helping to drive the company’s effort to overturn the unconstitutional ban legislation in the US and other pressing legal matters.

Shou Chew, CEO of TikTok, said, “Over the last few years, our teams have been working tirelessly on challenging legal and policy matters, including in the areas of data privacy and user safety. Erich Andersen has made great contributions and led many of our most challenging efforts successfully. I’ve always appreciated his wise counsel and dedication to TikTok. Although I am sad to see Erich leave his current role, I am delighted that he has agreed to step into the role as special counsel to focus on this very important mission facing our company.”

Andersen said, “It was a difficult decision to step down after so many years in this role. I’m grateful to my talented global legal team, which has successfully faced every new challenge with incredible grit and maturity. Together we’ve achieved significant success in areas as diverse as data privacy, youth mental health and safety, and e-commerce transactions. I’m particularly proud of the work we’ve done to help pioneer new approaches to national security and digital sovereignty concerns and our successful court challenges to unconstitutional laws."