TikTok owner becomes China's richest person

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index lists Zhang’s fortune at $57.5 billion, up $13.6 billion from the start of the year. Following the TikTok boss on Bloomberg’s list are Tencent founder Ma Huateng, worth $56.6 billion, and Zhong Shanshan, the owner of a beverage company, worth $54.1 billion.

ByteDance's deadline for divestment from TikTok in the US is getting closer

In Asia, Zhang Yiming is currently the third richest person, after India's Mukesh Ambani ($90.9 billion) and Gautam Adani ($72.3 billion).

The Success of TikTok

Zhang Yiming owns a 21% stake in ByteDance. The company's short video service TikTok has attracted more than 1 billion users, while the number of active users of its AI chatbot Doubao exceeds 75 million. In 2021, Zhang stepped down as CEO of ByteDance and later became chairman of the company's board of directors.

Hao Gao, director of the Global Family Business Research Center at Tsinghua University (China), said Zhang is different from previous generations of "Made in China" billionaires in that his business is more innovative and globally oriented.

Trump wants the US to set up a national investment fund, possibly buying TikTok

“The most important thing is that we are not a news business,” Zhang said in a 2017 press interview. “We are more like a search engine or a social media platform. We are doing really innovative work. We are not copying American companies — neither in terms of products nor in terms of technology.”

However, TikTok’s operations in the US remain uncertain. The US government has set a deadline for ByteDance to sell its US subsidiary, which expires on April 5. According to Bloomberg, Oracle is considered one of the potential participants in the deal, which could provide security guarantees and take a small stake in the new US company, while still leaving control of TikTok’s core algorithms to ByteDance.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/chu-so-huu-tiktok-tro-thanh-nguoi-giau-nhat-trung-quoc-185250329162056546.htm