Zhang Yiming, the founder of TikTok, is now the richest person in China

TikTok’s wild popularity has helped Zhang Yiming, the 41-year-old co-founder of the social network’s parent company ByteDance, become China’s richest person. 

Zhang Yiming Tops China’s Rich List with $49.3 Billion

According to Hurun Research Institute’s Hurun China Rich List 2024, released Tuesday, Zhang sits atop the list of the country’s flush people for the first time with a reported net worth of $49.3 billion. Since 1999, he has been the 18th person to hold the title of China’s richest man, the year the list was founded. The tech author commandeered Zhong Shanshan, author of bottled water mammoth Nongfu Spring, from the top of the list, a spot he held for three times. 

ByteDance, the owner of news platform Toutiao and TikTok’s Chinese app Douyin, is valued at over $225 billion, having generated $110 billion in profit last time. TikTok alone is responsible for about 100 billion of the company’s value, according to Wedbush Securities, and it’s no wonder why. Beyond its algorithm, which Wedbush critic Dan Ives said has doubled or tripled the app’s worth — TikTok has excelled at 150 million monthly active stoners( MAUs) in 2023 and is estimated to have over 1 billion global MAUs, according to DemandSage.

READ MORE: Best Five Reasons Why TikTok Might Get Banned Under Trump

Zhang Yiming’s Journey to Wealth Amid TikTok’s Legal Challenges

TikTok’s popularity persists in the face of an implicit U.S. ban for continuing to refuse to sell itself to a- Chinese owner by Jan. 19. The U.S. government advised ByteDance it’s an implicit public- security trouble and that China had the implicit to pierce American stoners’ data. Zhang stepped down as CEO of ByteDance in 2021 but still owns about 20% of the company.

TikTok is n’t the only Chinese mammoth under trouble. The total wealth measured on the Hurun China Rich List this time amounted to $3 trillion, a 10% dip from last time.The number of billionaires on the list, as measured in U.S. bones

dropped from 1,185 in 2021 to 753 this time amid mounting fears of the braking long- term growth of China’s economy.

Zhang’s big break

Zhang spent his council times in Tianjin’s Nankai University in Tianjin, erecting websites and fixing scholars’ computers as a way to earn some spare cash. He worked odd jobs, like erecting a quest machine for airfare tickets and a microblogging platform, before he joined Microsoft, a post he held for only six months.

“During my time at Microsoft, I spent half of my day reading books and the other half working, ” Zhang said in a 2014 interview with Caishi Media’s Super Talk, which was reworded from Chinese to English. “ There were not numerous grueling tasks to do, so utmost of the time, I felt relatively idle. ”

Zhang Yiming’s Vision for ByteDance and TikTok

Zhang founded ByteDance in 2012 in a four- bedroom Beijing apartment, and by 2014, the company’s news aggregator Toutiao had 220 million stoners, including 20 million quotidian stoners. Two times after that, ByteDance introduced TikTok, which came a worldwide hit during the epidemic. According to DemandSage, the video streaming app reached more than 3 billion downloads by 2022..

By the time Zhang stepped down as ByteDance’s CEO in 2021, he was entering pressure from Beijing, which was tightening its hold on its tech sector, anxious that the sedulity had amassed too important power and influence from its growing shell of billionaire elites.

ByteDance’s uncertain future in the U.S. appears to image China’s apprehension. In a 2017 interview paraphrased into English, Zhang sounded visionary about the trouble of expanding his novitiate TikTok into a global tech brand.

still, they can overcome cultural problems, ” he said, “ If( and) when Chinese companies go overseas. “ Will the overseas request be huge? I am both auspicious and pessimistic about this. ”

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