TikTok’s wild popularity has helped Zhang Yiming, the 41-year-old cofounder of the social network’s parent company ByteDance, become China’s richest person.
According to Hurun Research Institute’s Hurun China Rich List 2024 released Tuesday, Zhang sits atop the list of the country’s wealthiest people for the first time with a reported net wealth of $49.3 billion. He is the 18th person to hold the superlative of China’s richest man since 1999, the year the list was founded. The tech founder usurped Zhong Shanshan, founder of bottled water giant Nongfu Spring, from the top of the list, a spot he held for three years.
