SHANGHAI, March 27 — Zhang Yiming, founder of TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, is now reportedly the richest person in China, overtaking Tencent co-founder Ma Huateng and bottled water tycoon Zhong Shanshan.
According to a Bloomberg report, Zhang currently has a net worth of about $57.5 billion (RM254.87 billion).
His wealth reportedly rose by more than $10 billion recently.
Zhang, who lives in Singapore, owns 21 per cent of ByteDance — the main source of his fortune.
He started the company in a small apartment in Beijing in 2012, aiming to create smart, AI-powered platforms.
The company now owns a suite of apps including TikTok, Douyin, and the news app Toutiao.
Despite US threats to ban TikTok, the app still has more than 1 billion users globally.
