Tikok founder is China's richest person, while billionaires shrink

Tikok founder is China's richest person, while billionaires shrink

china has a new richest man - it is the entrepreneur behind the extremely popular but also controversial Tikok app. Zhang Yiming, 41 years old, co -founder of the parent company of Tikkok, Bytedance, leads the Hurun China Rich List published in 2024. His assets are $ 49.3 billion, as the research, media and investment group Hurun Inc.

Zhang yiming's climb to the top

The rise of Zhang coincides with an increase in the global sales of bytedance by 30% last year to $ 110 billion. Since the official launch in May 2017, Tiktok has developed into a mass phenomenon platform that is particularly popular in young people worldwide. In addition, Tiktok is a pioneering example for other Chinese companies that want to enter the US and global markets.

Legal challenges in the USA

In the USA, Tiktok is now facing numerous legal disputes, since the app has almost 200 million users there. Tikkok fights against state and federal laws that refer to alleged failures in protecting children who use the app. In addition, Tikkok is against a law on a defense that could result in a nationwide ban on the app if Tiktok does not divided its US companies.

international concerns and restrictions

This law, which was signed in April, follows years of US allegations that Tikok's connections to China could endanger personal data from Americans. Tikkok defends itself against these allegations that opened up in the course of an increasing competition between China and the USA and stir up far -reaching security concerns about Chinese technology companies in the USA. There are also national security concerns in other countries, which led to the blocking of Tiktok in India and restriction on government devices in Great Britain, Canada and Australia.

zhang yiming and bytedance

Zhang has 20% of bytedance, which he founded in 2012 together with his college co-resident Liang Rubo in Beijing. In 2021 he resigned as CEO after building Bytedance to one of the biggest names of the Chinese technology industry. Bytedance also operates the popular Toutiao news app and Douyin, the Chinese sister version of Tiktok.

The development of billionaires in China

Zhang's climb to the top of the Reich list, Zhong Shanshan, the “bottle water king” of China, displaced from the top position after three years. Although Zhong continues in second place, at the beginning of the year he was faced with a wave of online criticism that accused him of lacking patriotism and impaired his drinks' share price. In third place is Pony Ma, the founder of the multimedia and entertainment giant Tencent, who owns China's omnipresent messaging and payment platform.

decline in the billionaires

Overall, the number of US dollar billionaires in China has dropped to 753, which corresponds to a decline around 142 compared to the previous year. Since the highest level of 1,185 billionaires in 2021, China has lost 432 people, which corresponds to more than a third. The total number of people on the list - 1,094 - dropped in the third year in a row. This list includes people who have a fortune of at least 5 billion yuan (around $ 700 million) on the key date and also includes people living in Hong Kong, Macau and in the self-governing democracy.

economic challenges of China

Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman of Hurun Report, attributes the decline to a “difficult year” for China's economy and the stock markets. China is confronted with considerable economic challenges, including a real estate crisis, high debts of local governments and falling consumption expenditure, the global concerns about health and direction the second largest economy in the world.