Asia's richest man sails through US-China storm

Alibaba Holding

18/09/2026 03:41

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist.  The opinions expressed are his own. Refiles to fix editing credits.
By Ka Sing Chan
HONG KONG, Sept 18 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Asia's richest man is thriving in the eye of the US-China storm. ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming's $105 billion net worth has pipped those of Gautam Adani and Masayoshi Son. Nimbly doubling down on AI, Beijing’s policy support and extra flexibility from remaining private have helped the TikTok creator’s business prosper and pave a path to future fortunes.
The 43-year-old tycoon's worth has surged an astonishing eightfold since his name first appeared on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index in 2019. Sure, the artificial intelligence boom has shuffled rankings among the ultra-rich, but Zhang's ascendancy marks an extraordinary comeback after his company was forced to give up control of TikTok's US operations following a years-long political saga in Washington.
The short video app may be hugely popular globally, but ByteDance's fortunes are more closely tied to AI. Long before OpenAI's ChatGPT took the world by storm, the company was an early mover in this technology thanks to its hugely addictive apps that are able to predict what content users want to watch and consume. It has since doubled down in foundational models and agents. Its Doubao chatbot is China's most popular AI app, with around 380 million monthly users as of June. Its text-to-video Seedance model is among the world's most widely used.
Those early wins have helped propel ByteDance's private-market valuation to a record high of $600 billion, according to the South China Morning Post in April, citing a proposed equity sale from one of the founding shareholders. Indeed, remaining private has probably helped. The company, now led by CEO Rubo Liang, is on track to spend as much as $70 billion this year on data centres, chips and other infrastructure. That's above the forecast $50 billion that e-commerce giant Alibaba 9988.HK and gaming group Tencent 0700.HK are expected to spend combined on capital expenditure during this fiscal year, per Visible Alpha. A lack of public market pressure to deliver short-term returns probably helps. Indeed, ByteDance recently secured a $29.6 billion loan from nearly 30 banks, according to Reuters, indicating steady access to deep pools of capital even without a listing.
For ByteDance, retaining Beijing's backing in the form of cheap funding and a supportive regulatory regime will be crucial. The firm's future prospects rest equally on delivering more AI breakthroughs, which pairs nicely with China’s goal to grow national champions capable of going toe to toe with America’s best. So long as that continues, Zhang's own value will remain secure.
CONTEXT NEWS
ByteDance's founder Zhang Yiming overtook India's Gautam Adani to become Asia’s richest person, worth more than $105 billion, Bloomberg reported on September 16.

(Editing by Robyn Mak and Hudson Lockett; Production by Aditya Srivastav)
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