According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index as of June 3, Zhang Yiming, co-founder of ByteDance, has a net worth of $92.8 billion, surpassing Indian business magnate Mukesh Ambani ($86.9 billion) to become Asia’s second-richest person and solidifying his position as China’s wealthiest individual. 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 twofold: first, the risk discount on ByteDance’s valuation has narrowed significantly after the sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations to American investors; second, the rapid rise of the AI chatbot Doubao, which has surpassed 300 million monthly active users and become one of China’s most popular AI applications. ByteDance plans to invest up to $70 billion this year in the AI sector, with most of it expected to come from the company’s estimated $50 billion profit in 2025. Zhang Yiming became China’s richest person for the first time in 2025, was briefly overtaken by Tencent founder Ma Huateng, but has now regained the top spot this year.