Zhang Yiming, the 43-year-old founder of TikTok parent ByteDance, has become Asia’s richest person, with his fortune rising to approximately $105.5 billion. The milestone reflects the continued increase in ByteDance’s private-market valuation as TikTok and the company’s other platforms expand their global advertising and AI businesses.
Zhang founded ByteDance in 2012 and stepped down as CEO in 2021, but retains a significant ownership stake in the privately held technology company. ByteDance’s rising valuation has pushed his personal wealth above that of other Asian billionaires.
The scale of Zhang’s fortune is difficult to contextualize: spending $1 million every day would take roughly 289 years to exhaust $105.5 billion, assuming no investment returns, taxes or changes in asset values.
