Hoan Ton-That

According to the New York Times, Ton-That dropped out of university in Australia and moved to San Francisco, California in 2007. He was unsuccessful in early ventures to create social media applications after the advent of Apple's iPhone. In 2009, he created the company HappyAppy and its app ViddyHo, a phishing application/computer worm that spammed a user's contacts. Ton-That was sought by the police when this worm spread in 2009. He then created fastforwarded.com, a similar phishing site. Ton-That later worked at AngelList.

In 2016, Ton-That met Richard Schwartz at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. They partnered on an application with Schwartz paying server costs and basic expenses and Ton-That hiring two engineers who worked on software that could scrape images from Internet sources to cross reference on a facial recognition algorithm. It emerged from stealth mode in late 2017 and was linked to far right/alt-right supporters such as Chuck Johnson, Mike Cernovich, Douglass Mackey, and Paul Nehlen.

Clearview AI received investments from Peter Thiel and Naval Ravikant totaling more than $200,000, which later converted into equity in the company. Upon Clearview AI receiving cease-and-desist letters from Google, YouTube, Venmo and LinkedIn, Ton-That appeared on CBS This Morning for an interview with CBS News correspondent Errol Barnett in February 2020.

Ton-That resigned as CEO of Clearview AI in February 2025, announcing plans to remain a board member.

Ton-That descends from a cadet branch (Tôn Thất) of the former ruling family of Vietnam.