His comments in a letter to ByteDance's Chinese employees came after the company and Zhang were heavily criticized on Chinese social media for entering into talks with Microsoft to sell TikTok's U.S. operations. Chinese media first reported the contents of the internal letter. "People have high expectations of a company founded by a Chinese person which is going global but have little information about it. With lots of grievances towards the U.S. government, they tend to lash out at us with harsh criticism." Zhang also told employees that over the last two years, anti-Chinese sentiment had risen in many countries and the company must brace for more difficulties in the current atmosphere.

Source: CBC News August 04, 2020 10:52 UTC