Chevron has asked its global employees to remove Tencent Holdings' WeChat from their work phones, making it one of the first US companies to heed the Trump administration's executive order banning the Chinese social app on alleged national security risks.
The American oil giant identified WeChat as a "non-compliant application" in a staff e-mail, asking those who installed the app on their work handsets to delete it within daysor they will be disconnected from the company's network, according to the memo viewed by Bloomberg News.
"Due to a recent Executive Order banning the use of WeChat, Chevron is requiring that you remove the application from your mobile device," said the memo, which also identifies the operating system and model of each employee's phone.
"If no action is taken, prior to Sept 27, 2020, your access to the Chevron system will be removed."
A Chevron representative declined to comment and a Tencent spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
WeChat has emerged as a top target in President Donald Trump's crackdown on China ahead of the November elections. Tensions between Washington and Beijing are escalating as his administration wages a campaign that has also ensnared ByteDance and its short-video service TikTok.
WeChat was supposed to disappear from US app stores on Sunday under Mr Trump's executive order, but a San Francisco judge over the weekend issued a preliminary injunction to halt the order, saying it's against free-speech rights.
WeChat has 19 million regular users in the United States and more than a billion worldwide. The app is a gateway to several of Tencent's most lucrative businesses, including games and digital payments, and it's also a heavily used marketing and communications tool for American businesses reaching out to their Chinese counterparts or consumer audience.