Meet Zhang Yiming, the "unknown billionaire behind TikTok," who is now the richest person in China

TikTok's growing global popularity has made the co-founder of its parent company, ByteDance, China's richest person.

According to a list produced by the Hurun Research Institute, Zhang Yiming is now worth $49.3 billion – 43% more than in 2023, the Telegraph reports.

The 41-year-old reportedly stepped down from his role at the helm of the company in 2021, but is understood to own around 20% of the firm.

TikTok has become one of the most popular social media apps in the world, despite deep concerns in some countries about its ties to the Chinese state.

While both companies insist they are independent from the Chinese government, the US intends to ban TikTok in January 2025 unless ByteDance sells it.

Despite facing that intense pressure in the US, ByteDance's global profit grew 60% last year, boosting Zhang Yiming's personal wealth.

But who is Zhang Yiming?

TikTok's widespread popularity has not only created a new generation of social media stars, but also helped create China's richest person.

Zhang is a very private person and little is publicly known about his personal life.

However, recently he has been put in the spotlight again after he was named in the list as the richest person in China, Telegraph reports.

After leading ByteDance for nearly a decade, Zhang stepped down as CEO in 2021, telling employees that he is "not very social, preferring solitary activities such as being online, reading, listening to music and thinking that what can be possible".

"The truth is that I lack some of the skills that make an ideal manager," Zhang was quoted as saying at the time, according to Reuters, saying he would be a better help to the company in a role that does not it involved managing people directly.

Zhang's parents worked as civil servants, according to Bloomberg.

Its name is based on a Chinese proverb about "surprising everyone with a first attempt".

Zhang graduated from Nankai University in 2005, where he began studying microelectronics before switching his major to software engineering.

He said he was an engineer at first, but came to lead 40 to 50 people in his second year at the company, according to SCMP.

He credits that job with teaching him the sales skills he later used to grow ByteDance, including learning "what sales are good sales."

Zhang learned the value of pursuing excellence while still at his first job at Kuxun, he told ByteDance employees.

"At that time, I was in charge of the technology, but when the product had problems and I wanted to actively participate in the discussion of the product plan," Zhang said, according to the newspaper. "A lot of people say this is not what I should be doing. But I want to say: your sense of responsibility and your desire to do things well will push you to do more things and gain experience.

Zhang also reportedly worked at Microsoft before founding ByteDance.

He founded TikTok's parent company in 2012.

The company owns several social networking applications that operate within China. It launched a WeChat rival called FlipChat and a video messaging app called Duoshan in 2019.

"For a very long time, I just watched TikTok videos without making any of them myself, because it's a product mainly for young people," Zhang said.

“But later we made it mandatory for all members of the management team to make their videos for TikTok, and they have to earn a certain number of 'likes'. Otherwise, they have to do 'pumps'. It was a big step for me."

Zhang's leadership style is "soft-spoken but charismatic, logical but passionate, young but wise," according to Kai-Fu Lee, a Taiwanese businessman and computer scientist.

When he stepped down as CEO in 2021, he said he "lacks some of the skills that make an ideal manager" and would be a greater asset to the company in a non-management role.

Zhang wants the app to continue to grow overseas, saying he hopes his ByteDance will be "as borderless as Google."

"We must work harder, we must also be more perfectionists", he said further. /Telegraph/