According to the latest Bloomberg Billionaires Index data on June 3, Zhang Yiming, co-founder of ByteDance, has seen his net worth rise to $92.8 billion, surpassing Indian business tycoon Mukesh Ambani ($86.9 billion) to become Asia’s second-richest person, while solidifying his position as China’s richest person. Meanwhile, Indian billionaire Gautam Adani remains Asia’s richest person with a net worth of $117.4 billion. Since Bloomberg began tracking Zhang Yiming’s wealth in 2019, his net worth has grown more than sixfold from $13 billion.
The core drivers of this wealth surge are, first, the significant narrowing of the risk discount on ByteDance’s valuation after the sale of TikTok’s US business to American investors; second, the rapid rise of the AI chatbot Doubao, whose monthly active users have exceeded 300 million, making it one of the most popular AI applications in China. ByteDance plans to invest up to $70 billion this year in the AI sector, with most of the funds expected to come from the company’s projected profit of around $50 billion in 2025. Zhang Yiming became China’s richest person for the first time in 2025, was briefly overtaken by Tencent founder Ma Huateng, and has now regained the top spot this year.