TikTok’s founder is now China’s richest person. But the country’s total number of billionaires has shrunk

CNN —

China has a new richest person – and it’s the entrepreneur behind the wildly popular, and controversial, app TikTok.

Zhang Yiming, 41, co-founder of TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, topped the 2024 Hurun China Rich List, released Tuesday. His wealth reached $49.3 billion, as assessed by research, media and investment group Hurun Inc, which publishes the ranking of the country’s richest people.

Zhang’s ascendency comes after ByteDance’s global revenue grew 30% last year to $110 billion, Hurun said.

Since its official launch in May 2017, TikTok has been catapulted to mass global popularity as well as becoming an era-defining social media platform beloved by many young people around the world – and a trailblazing example for other Chinese companies eager to break into US and global markets.

But it’s also now facing mounting legal battles in the US, where according to Hurun it has nearly 200 million users.

There, TikTok is battling state and federal lawsuits related to alleged failures to protect children using the app, while it and ByteDance are fighting a law that could force a nationwide ban of the app if TikTok doesn’t spin off its US operations.

The law – signed in April – follows years of US allegations that TikTok’s ties to China could potentially expose Americans’ personal information to the Chinese government. TikTok strongly denies the allegations, which come as a growing China-US rivalry has fueled broader American national security concerns about Chinese tech firms. TikTok has also rejected the allegations relating to child protection.

Other countries have also cited national security concerns, including India which has banned TikTok. Western allies such as Britain, Canada and Australia have