IWMBuzz was the first to report about Bytedance India’s decision to layoff majority of its task force post the Indian government’s permanent ban notice.

After the interim ban last year, Bytedance, who owns popular apps like TikTok, Helo, decided to retain its employees in hope of a possible return, which doesn’t seem a possibility at this point in time, thus the decision of laying off.

It’s important here to share Bytedance’s version on the development.

We have worked steadfastly to comply with the Government of India order issued on June 29, 2020. We continually strive to make our apps comply with local laws and regulations and do our best to address any concerns they have. It is therefore disappointing that in the ensuing seven months, despite our efforts we have not been given a clear direction on how and when our apps could be reinstated. It is deeply regretful that after supporting our 2000+ employees in India for more than half a year, we have no choice but to scale back the size of our workforce. We look forward to receiving the opportunity to relaunch TikTok and support the hundreds of millions of users, artists, story-tellers, educators and performers in India.

It is said that though the majority of the workforce will be given a severance package, some of its key members of the leadership team will continue to march on in search of the probable light at the end of the tunnel.

One such name, or business leader, who is the center of all discussion and speculation currently, is Nikhil Gandhi, the current India Head of TikTok.

Gandhi, a nuanced media professional of high caliber (ex Disney, Times Network, Viacom Media Networks) for many years, brought a sea of business structure change at TikTok with utmost efficiency leading to positive market local sentiment.

Nikhil built a solid team structure locally, thus organizing TikTok in India and also got some of the top-notch entertainment faces like Deepika Padukone to the platform, enhancing brand credibility and enriching user relatability experience.

But the big question is, what’s next for him with the sudden change of things?

We reached out to a highly placed industry source and we were told: “He is weathering the storm. We hear he is juggling multiple options. First, he might continue with Bytedance, second, he might join in the leadership role of homegrown similar competitive networks. We also hear he is in talks with multiple investors to take the entrepreneurship route.”

Interesting!!!

Times Of India did a report about Nikhil and a band of senior leaders from TikTok joining InMobi, however, the claim, as per sources, seem premature.

We did send a message to a InMobi representative but did not receive any revert on the above query.

Adds the source, “See, Nikhil has been heading one of the most important portfolios in the country and in a medium which is the present and the future, hence his skillsets are in demand. What he does next eventually, only time will tell.”

Armed with the info, we buzzed Nikhil but he remained unavailable for comment.

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