Zhang Yiming, co-founder and ex-boss of the Chinese group ByteDance, owner of the TikTok application in the crosshairs of several governments, saw his personal fortune melt by 17 billion dollars last year, according to a benchmark ranking published Thursday.
However, he remains the second richest entrepreneur in the world under the age of 40, with a bank account valued at 37 billion dollars (34 billion euros), according to this ranking established by the Chinese firm Hurun.
In front of him is Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of the American Meta (Facebook and Instagram), with a fortune estimated at 68 billion dollars, despite 8 billion losses last year, indicates Hurun.
The firm gives no explanation for these variations.
Zhang Yiming, who co-founded ByteDance in Beijing in 2012, resigned from the group in 2021, in the midst of regulatory tightening in China against the digital giants.
ByteDance quickly established itself in its country in the very competitive world of the Internet thanks to its popular application of short videos Douyin.
According to Hurun, the platform has the largest market capitalization in the world ($200 billion).
Its version for the international is TikTok, very popular with teenagers around the world, but threatened with a total ban in the United States in the name of national security.
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TikTok is not popular with governments
TikTok is accused by its critics of allowing Chinese authorities access to user data around the world, which the application disputes.
Its boss Shou Zi Chew, a Singaporean with a Harvard degree, had tried hard to defend its application last month in the American Congress, in the face of intractable elected officials, who for the most part condemned TikTok in advance.
The White House, European Commission, Canadian, British, Australian governments and other organizations recently banned their officials from using TikTok on their work phones.
On Tuesday, TikTok was fined 12.7 million pounds (14.5 million euros) by the British digital regulator, the ICO, for "illegal" use
of
personal data of children.
Zhang Yiming, a Chinese citizen, is now based in Singapore.