The 10 Richest Man in China in 2024, the Real Billionaires

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - China is ranked second as the country contributing most billionaires in the world, boosting 406 people as Forbes Magazines reported through its annual richest people in the world in 2024. Even so, China’s billionaires’ performance in the list has plummeted for consecutive years. This is due to the slump of their stock market during and post pandemic in 2020.

Some billionaires sustain their place in the top 10 richest men in China for years despite the fallout, others are seen to have been flourishing with the increase of their net worth.

Here are the top 10 richest men in China in 2024 according to Forbes Magazine.

1. Zhong Shanshan - $62.8 billion

Zhong Shanshan is the richest man in China for his chain of businesses. He has been named as the richest Chinese man for four consecutive years by Forbes Magazine. Zhong’s primary wealth source is the bottled water and tea drink company he controls. He is the CEO of Nongfu Spring.

Although he maintained his number one position in the list, Zhong Shashan’s net worth has been declining from a total of $68 billion last year. The fallout of Zhang’s Covid test supplier company, Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy, is the major reason behind the fallout.

2. Zhang Yiming - $43.4 billion

Zhang Yiming is the founder of ByteDance, a parent company of Tiktok. People from different generations are all about this short video social media platform for the past years, thanks to the lockdown arrangement during the pandemic back in 2020.

According to the Global Unicorn Index 2024 list, ByteDance ranks one in the top 10 world’s current most valuable unicorn companies. Besides Tiktok, ByteDance has another social media platform named Douyin in China that contributes to the company’s value. In 2021, Zhang Yimin left his position as chairman of ByteDance.

3. Colin Huang - $38.9 billion

Colin Huang is one of the richest men in China whose net worth successfully increased in the last year. In 2023, his net worth was valued at $30.2 billion. As a result, Colin Huang climbed the ladder to be China’s third richest billionaire. Colin Huang is the founder of PDD Holdings, a company that operates the Chineses e-commerce Temu App.

4. William Ding - $33.5 billion

William Ding, also known as Ding Lei, is ranked fourth as the richest man in China due to his online gaming businesses. He is the CEO of Nasdaq and NetEase. Ding’s net worth has also increased for a total of $6.8 in the last year. The popularity of his gaming business chains play a huge role in his success. Matter of fact, William Ding had the second best growth among the top ten richest men in China’s members.

5. Ma Huateng - $30.2 billion

Ma Huateng is a CEO of web-media Tencent where he owns 7.4% shares. Ma Huateng or also known as Pony Ma founded Tencent in 1998. One of the most notable and famed products from Tencent is the messaging App WeChat. Tencent owns a stake in Epic Games, one of the US video game companies.

Despite the promising chain of businesses, Pony Ma’s wealth decreased from $35.3 billion just last year.

6. He Xiangjian - $25.1 billion

He Xiangjian chaired Shenzhen Midea Group for more than 30 years. He was the co-founder of the Group where he successfully transformed it into one of the largest home appliance makers in the world. In 2012, He Xiangjian stepped down as the chairman and left the legacy to his son He Jianfeng as the successor of Midea Group and Midea Real Estate Holding.

7. Jack Ma - $24.5 billion

Jack Ma may be one of the most familiar faces in the Chinese’s richest man list in 2024. This is expected as he was once the China’s richest person alive. Jack Ma is the co-founder of Alibaba, the giant e-commerce company. Quoting from Reuters, Alibaba announced the group plan to split into six businesses with its own CEO and board each. This was the biggest revamp yet of the company in their 24 year history.

8. Eric Li - $16.8 billion

Forbes named Eric Li -- also knows as Eric Xun Li, born Li Shimo -- as China's richest entrepreneur in the automotive industry due to his position as the chairman of Zhejiang Geely Holding. The company operates that involve the automakers of Volvo, Daimlers, Geely Automotive, Zeekr, and Polestar.

9. Qin Yinglin - $15.5 billion

Despite the fallout of Qin Yinglin’s networth from $18.9 billion to $15.5 billion, he is ranked 9th in the list of richest men in China in 2024. He is the CEO of Muyuan Foods, one of the largest pork producers.

10. Wang Chuanfu - $14.2 billion

Wang Chuanfu was orphaned as a teen and raised by his brother and sister. In 1990, Wang co-founded BYD, a rechargeable battery company. 

Although multiple of the members experienced deep fallout in their net worth, some of the names have been in the list of richest men in China for years for their praiseworthy innovation.

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