BEIJING: ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming has overtaken Indian billionaire Gautam Adani to become Asia’s richest person, with his fortune rising above $105 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Zhang, whose company owns TikTok, has seen his wealth increase by more than $12 billion this month after Bloomberg incorporated updated valuations from investment firms including BlackRock, Fidelity Investments and T. Rowe Price. His fortune has risen more than eightfold from about $13 billion in March 2019.
The rise in Zhang’s wealth has been linked to the growing value of ByteDance, whose businesses include TikTok and artificial intelligence products. Zhang’s fortune has increased by about $40.3 billion so far this year, according to the figures cited in the report.
Adani is also estimated to have a fortune of about $105 billion, while Indian businessman Mukesh Ambani ranks among Asia’s other wealthiest individuals with an estimated $81.3 billion.
Who is Zhang Yiming?
Born in 1983 in China’s Fujian province, Zhang studied software engineering at Nankai University and graduated in 2005.
After graduation, he joined travel-search company Kuxun, where he initially worked as an engineer. He later took on management responsibilities and became involved in product development and sales, experiences that he has said helped shape his approach to building businesses.
Zhang later worked at Microsoft before leaving to pursue entrepreneurship.
In 2012, he founded ByteDance, which went on to develop TikTok and its Chinese counterpart, Douyin. Zhang stepped down as ByteDance’s chief executive in 2021.
Despite becoming one of China’s wealthiest entrepreneurs, Zhang has maintained a relatively low public profile.
He has previously said that he rarely used TikTok in its early years because he viewed the platform as being primarily aimed at younger users. He later became more involved with the product as ByteDance encouraged employees to create and engage with TikTok videos.
