On Wednesday (Oct. 22), around fifteen employees in U.S. and Latin American music roles at TikTok and ByteDance across multiple territories were told their positions were terminated, according to sources close to the matter. Two sources say a number of those impacted will have their accounts on the company’s business management platform, Lark, deactivated on Friday (Oct. 24), marking the end of their employment.
More music team members at TikTok in other parts of the world are expected to be laid off soon. One source says that some TikTok employees in the U.K. office were recently notified that they had been terminated — a requirement by U.K. law — foreshadowing another round of layoffs.
Sources say TikTok will focus on current artist and festival partnerships for now. A number of roles are said to have been eliminated on the music-related partnerships and programming teams.
The people who remain on the music team after the layoffs include Tracy Gardner (global head of music business development), Rachel Dunham (artist partnerships lead), Kat Kernaghan (label partnerships director), Jordan Lowy (global head of music publishing licensing and partnerships), Emily Mitchell (manager, music publishing partnerships) and Graham Pierce (music partnerships Americas, Australia, New Zealand), according to sources.
Six months ago, Gardner took over the post of global head of music business development from longtime leader Ole Obermann. Obermann is now the co-head of Apple Music. Gardner’s team remains unaffected by the layoffs.
This would mark the first round of significant layoffs at TikTok’s music division since 2023, when seven U.S.-based staffers on the artist services team were cut to improve efficiency. Those cuts came one month after the company unveiled its TikTok Music streaming platform in several international markets, though that service was wound down the following year as the company said it would instead focus its efforts on its “Add to Music” app.
A representative for TikTok declined Billboard’s request for comment.
