Zhang is a co-founder of ByteDance, the social media group behind video-sharing app TikTok. The Beijing-based company also owns the news aggregation service Toutiao. ByteDance has more than 1 billion users worldwide and had revenue of $155 billion in 2024. Zhang stepped down as chief executive in May 2021.
Zhang's wealth is derived from his stake in ByteDance, the social media group behind video-sharing app TikTok. The Beijing-based company has more than 1 billion users, according to a Feb. 2, 2024 Bloomberg News report. It had revenue of more than $155 billion in 2024, according to an April 12, 2025 Bloomberg News report.
Zhang is credited with 21% of the company based on TikTok's petition to a US court in May 2024. Previously, TikTok CEO's prepared testimony in March 2023 showed Zhang's ownership at about 20%.
It's valued at $424 billion in this analysis based on the average of three investors' valuations, according to filings from BlackRock, T. Rowe and Fidelity as of December 2025, as well as an average valuation of $420 billion taken from the bids for the company's stake in November 2025, according to a Bloomberg News report.
This valuation accounts for the January 2026 spin off of TikTok's US business, valued at $14 billion. ByteDance retains a 19.9% ownership in the business, according to a February 2026 Bloomberg News report. A 25% risk discount is applied in this analysis.
Cash holdings are based on an analysis of the stake sale of TikTok's US business, market performance and taxes.
A spokeswoman for the company declined to comment on Zhang's net worth.
Zhang Yiming was born in 1983 in Fujian province of China. He grew up in the southeastern city of Longyan, the only son of civil servants, according to a Bloomberg News report in 2017.
He studied software engineering in Nankai University in Tianjian. Graduating in 2005, he started his career as an engineer at the tourism search website, Kuxun.com. In 2009, Zhang started his first business, a property search site called 99fang.com. He quit the business three years later.
In 2012, Zhang co-founded ByteDance, a Beijing-based business that provides news aggregation services. The company is said to have had revenue of about 50 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) in 2018. It reported a revenue of $17 billion in 2019. Bloomberg reported ByteDance's valuation exceeds $100 billion in private markets in May 2020 and the company is seeking another $2 billion funding raising round at a $180 billion valuation in November 2020.
Zhang is a Chinese national lives in Singapore, according to TikTok's document to US court in May 2024.