ByteDance has released an official statement announcing the dismissal of Qiao Mu, the former head of its Large Language Model (LLM) department, along with an HRBP (Human Resources Business Partner) who supported his work. The termination was due to conflicts of interest, resulting in the withholding of their year-end bonuses. According to the statement, these two employees maintained an intimate relationship, which breached the company's strict policies against conflict of interest scenarios, including superior-subordinate relationships, shared direct supervisors, or direct connections between HRBPs and employees. Despite multiple opportunities, they failed to disclose their conflict of interest and provided misleading statements during the internal investigation. Consequently, ByteDance has taken decisive action to terminate their employment and withhold their year-end bonuses.