Zhang Yiming, the 41-year-old co-founder of ByteDance, the company behind the wildly popular social media app TikTok, has claimed the top spot on the 2024 Hurun China Rich List, CNN reports.
His estimated wealth reached $49.3 billion, a testament to the app’s global success and ByteDance’s staggering growth in revenue.
TikTok’s rapid ascension to prominence since its launch in 2017 has made it a defining social media platform for young people worldwide. The app has become a model for Chinese companies seeking to penetrate US and global markets. However, this success has come with mounting legal challenges in the US, where TikTok boasts nearly 200 million users.
The app is facing both state and federal lawsuits alleging failures to protect children, while a new law signed in April could force a nationwide ban unless TikTok spins off its US operations. The US government has raised concerns about TikTok’s ties to China, suggesting potential risks to American user data. TikTok vehemently denies these allegations, which come amidst escalating US-China rivalry and broader concerns about Chinese tech firms.
Despite these legal battles, TikTok’s global appeal remains strong, with users undeterred by regulatory hurdles in countries like India, which has banned the app, and Western allies like Britain, Canada, and Australia, which have restricted its use on government devices.
Zhang, who stepped down as CEO of ByteDance in 2021, owns a 20% stake in the company, which also owns China’s popular news app Toutiao and Douyin, TikTok’s sister app in China. His ascent to the top of the rich list displaces “bottled water king” Zhong Shanshan, who held the position for three years.
The Hurun Report, which compiles the list, noted a decline in the number of Chinese billionaires, shrinking to 753 from 895 the previous year. This trend, attributed to a “difficult year” for China’s economy and stock markets, signals the growing challenges faced by the world’s second-largest economy. Hurun Report chairman Rupert Hoogewerf pointed to a real estate crisis, high local government debt, and lagging consumer spending as contributing factors.
Despite the economic headwinds, the list highlights a shift towards tech, new energy, consumer electronics, and healthcare sectors.
“The old guard, represented by real estate developers, have given way to a new guard of tech, new energy, consumer electronics, especially smartphones, ecommerce, especially cross-border ecommerce, consumer products and healthcare,” said Hoogewerf.
