TikTok Founder Becomes Asia's Richest Person Amid AI Boom
Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok, has become the wealthiest individual in Asia for the first time. His net worth is estimated at over $105 billion, marking a significant increase of more than $12 billion since the beginning of the month. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Zhang's wealth now surpasses that of Indian tycoon Gautam Adani, who controls Haifa Port. This represents an eightfold increase from his $13 billion fortune recorded in March 2019, when Bloomberg began tracking his wealth.
Zhang was already the richest person in China, largely due to TikTok's immense popularity and ByteDance's expansion into artificial intelligence, including its AI chatbot Doubao and video generator Seedance. The recent surge in his wealth highlights the substantial new wealth generated by the AI boom. Concurrently, TikTok has faced threats of being banned in the U.S. A 2024 law mandated ByteDance divest its U.S. operations, and the app was briefly disabled in January 2025. However, following Donald Trump's return to the White House, enforcement was delayed. A settlement in January 2026 established a new U.S. entity for TikTok, with ByteDance retaining a 19.9% stake, thereby removing the ban threat.
ByteDance was founded by Zhang in 2012, initially gaining recognition for its news app Toutiao, which used algorithms for personalized content. The company later expanded into short-form video, launching Douyin in China in 2016 and the international version, TikTok, a year later. ByteDance acquired Musical.ly in 2017 and merged it into TikTok in 2018, a move that fueled the app's growth in Western markets. Zhang stepped down as ByteDance CEO in 2021, succeeded by co-founder Liang Rubo.
Analysts note Zhang's strategic focus on AI development, even amid U.S. scrutiny of TikTok. "He played his cards right," said Lian Jie Su, chief analyst at Omdia. "He stayed his course and continued to deepen investments in AI." Su suggests ByteDance's vast social media data could be valuable for training AI models, positioning AI products as its next major opportunity after its video platform's success, though intense competition in China poses a significant risk. Meanwhile, Adani's wealth, which peaked around $120 billion in June, has declined due to stock rebalancing in the MSCI index and broader market downturns influenced by rising oil prices and bond yields.
The AI boom has created new billionaires in China, even among owners of unprofitable companies, and fostered significant wealth in unexpected sectors like manufacturing. China is actively promoting AI development as part of its global technological competition with the U.S., recently criticizing calls from U.S. tech leaders to slow AI development and impose stricter regulations on Chinese AI companies.
