ccording to a Bloomberg report, Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance Ltd., the parent company of TikTok, is now recognised as the wealthiest individual in China.
On Wednesday, Zhang Yiming secured the top position on Bloomberg’s list, boasting a fortune of $57.5 billion. He outperformed bottled water magnate Zhong Shanshan and Ma Huateng, co-founder of Tencent Holdings.
Regarding total wealth, Zhang Yiming ranks Asia’s third-wealthiest individual, coming behind Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance, and Gautam Adani, chairman of Adani Group. Mukesh Ambani leads Asia’s wealthiest person with a net worth of $90.9 billion, while Gautam Adani follows closely with a net worth of $72.3 billion.
According to Bloomberg’s analysis, the wealth of the TikTok founder surged by $10 billion due to evaluations from investors such as BlackRock Inc., Fidelity Investments, and T. Rowe Price Group Inc., alongside the company’s intention to repurchase employee stock at a valuation of $312 billion.
After facing potential blocking threats from the United States, Zhang Yiming has made a remarkable recovery.
Having established ByteDance in 2012 from a four-bedroom apartment in Beijing, Zhang also created the news aggregator Toutiao and the video-sharing platform TikTok. The app has significantly disrupted the online landscape and elevated Zhang to the ranks of the wealthiest people globally.
Although Zhang stepped down as CEO of ByteDance in 2021, Reuters reports that he still holds more than 50 percent of the company’s voting rights.
Born in 1983 in Longyan, Fujian, China, Zhang was raised as the only child of civil servant parents. He earned his microelectronics engineering and software engineering degrees from Nankai University in Tianjin.
