TikTok’s Fate Rests With ByteDance’s Elusive Founder

The business world is watching to see whether the Supreme Court—or possibly Donald Trump—saves TikTok. But another man may be more important to the app’s fate: Zhang Yiming, the elusive founder of TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance.

Zhang holds supervoting shares that give him effective control over ByteDance and its businesses, according to investors and former executives, even though he doesn’t sit on the board of the company. That means he will make the final call—subject to the Chinese government’s consent—on whether ByteDance should sell TikTok or allow the app to be shut down in the U.S. And so far he is keeping his cards close to his chest.