- Ted Livingston wrote in a drunken text that he would leave the company, due to the conflict with U.S. regulators.
- Kik has been in a protracted battle with the SEC ever since the firm’s $100m ICO in 2017.
Ted Livingston, the CEO of messaging platform Kik, seems to be close to quitting the startup that he founded in 2009. In an apparent drunk text, Livingston said that he wants to leave the project due to the conflicts with U.S. regulators.
He wrote:
“Will, I know I’ve been drinking, but this ain’t the drink talking, I’m [fed] up with this shit. We’ll talk more in the morning about replacement, but i quit…I have my ticket. I’m not going to jail for this.”
The planned recipient of the text remains unspecified. However, the message suggests it was sent to Kik board member William Mougayar. Instead, he accidentally sent the text to a CoinDesk reporter named William Foxley. When asked for comments about this, Livingston said “no comments.” He seemed to be suggesting that discussions are going on detailing who would carry out the operations after his departure.
Concerning Kik’s $100 million initial coin offering (ICO) in 2017, the company has been in a protracted battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company claimed that dealing with SEC cost $5 million to the firm. Kik had earlier announced that the regulatory proceedings had affected the company negatively and that its flagship messaging service will be discontinued. Livingston said that Kik plans to downsize to 19 core developers to continue the development of Kik’s native token, KIN.
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