Zhang Yiming

Zhang Yiming is a co-founder of ByteDance, the social media group behind video-sharing app TikTok. The Beijing-based company also owns the news aggregation service Toutiao. ByteDance has more than 1 billion users worldwide and reported revenue of $80 billion in 2022. Zhang stepped down as chief executive in May 2021.

Zhang’s wealth is derived from his stake in ByteDance, the social media group behind video-sharing app TikTok. The Beijing-based company has more than 1 billion monthly users worldwide, according to a Nov. 3, 2021 Bloomberg News report. It had revenue of $80 billion in 2022, according to a April 3, 2023 report.

Zhang is credited with about 20% of the company based on TikTok CEO’s prepared testimony in March 2023. ByteDance recorded private trades that put its valuation at about $220 billion, according to a March 15, 2023 Bloomberg News report.

The calculation of Zhang’s wealth was reduced by $13 billion on March 30, 2023 to reflect the latest information on the size of his stake and value of the company. ByteDance was previously valued at about $300 billion in a buyback scheme in September 2022, according to a Bloomberg News report.

A spokeswoman for the company declined to comment on Zhang’s net worth.

Biography

Education: Nankai University

Zhang Yiming was born in 1983 in Fujian province of China. He grew up in the southeastern city of Longyan, the only son of civil servants, according to a Bloomberg News report in 2017.

He studied software engineering in Nankai University in Tianjian. Graduating in 2005, he started his career as an engineer at the tourism search website, Kuxun.com. In 2009, Zhang started his first business, a property search site called 99fang.com. He quit the business three years later.

In 2012, Zhang co-founded ByteDance, a Beijing-based business that provides news aggregation services. The company is said to have had revenue of about 50 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) in 2018. It reported a revenue of $17 billion in 2019. Bloomberg reported ByteDance’s valuation exceeds $100 billion in private markets in May 2020 and the company is seeking another $2 billion funding raising round at a $180 billion valuation in November 2020.