Investor memo: ByteDance will spend up to $3B to repurchase shares in the next two to three months, in a deal that values the company at around $300B (Reuters)

New York Times:
Former TikTok and ByteDance staff say TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s power is limited, with ByteDance’s founder and other executives making most decisions  —  Shou Zi Chew, TikTok’s chief executive, is balancing how to be an autonomous leader while juggling the demands of the app’s Chinese parent company.

Coco Feng / South China Morning Post:
Sources: ByteDance CFO told staff that it has no plans to go public; report: CEO Liang said the company plans to reduce input into noncore businesses  —  TikTok ‘s parent company ByteDance , the world’s most valuable unicorn, has no plans to go public, its chief financial officer told employees …

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: ByteDance plans to expand its Resso music streaming service globally, starting with over a dozen markets excluding the US, and integrate it into TikTok  —  Company is negotiating with labels as it seeks more than a dozen new global markets  —  TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd …

Emily Baker-White / Forbes:
Sources: ByteDance launched audits into TikTok’s global CSO Roland Cloutier before he quit, hamstringing his efforts to build a robust security team  —  Roland Cloutier, a U.S. Air Force veteran and former law enforcement officer, stepped down as TikTok’s Global Chief Security Officer …

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg:
Kuaishou reports Q3 revenue up 12.9% YoY to ~$3.2B, beating estimates, and a ~$378M net loss, holding its own against ByteDance and China’s slowing economy  —  Kuaishou Technology’s revenue beat estimates, holding its own against a slowing Chinese economy and competition from TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd.

Emily Baker-White / Forbes:
Docs: a China-based ByteDance audit team planned to collect TikTok location data of US citizens who had never had an employment relationship with the company  —  The project, assigned to a Beijing-led team, would have involved accessing location data from some U.S. users’ devices without their knowledge or consent.