Zhang Yiming, the founder of TikTok parent ByteDance, lost $17 billion of his personal fortune last year, according to a Chinese firm’s ranking released Thursday.
The reasons for these losses are not known, but despite the downturn, Zhang remains the second richest entrepreneur under 40 years of age, with an estimated fortune of $37 billion, according to statistics from the Chinese firm Hurun.
Ahead of Zhang is Mark Zuckerberg, the head of the American giant Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, whose fortune is estimated by Hurun at $68 billion.
Zhang co-founded ByteDance in Beijing in 2012, but resigned from the conglomerate in 2021 after tightening regulations on China’s technology industry.
Now Zhang, who is Chinese, lives in Singapore.
ByteDance’s success in the competitive Chinese market is largely due to its popular Douyin video app.
Its international version, TikTok, is hugely popular with teens around the world, but fears about national security create uncertainty about its future in many countries.
Several critics claim that TikTok allows the Chinese government access to user data around the world, a charge the company denies.
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