41-year-old Zhang Yiming, co-founder of ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, has become the richest person in China. he tops this year's list of the country's richest men, Hurun China Rich List, ahead of bottled water entrepreneur Zhong Shanshan.

Yiming's wealth is estimated at 49.3 billion. He takes the title after ByteDance's revenue grew 30% to $110 billion last year.

Since its inception, TikTok has grown and today has up to 200 million users in the US alone. However, there are concerns about the platform's work with a young audience, both for US national security and child protection.

U.S. lawmakers passed a law in April that could ban TikTok nationwide if ByteDance doesn't abandon its U.S. operations. US lawmakers have raised concerns for years that the Chinese government may have access to TikTok user data, which TikTok has denied.

Despite regulatory pressure, TikTok continues to grow. It has faced restrictions in many countries, including India, where it has been banned entirely. Western countries such as the UK, Canada and Australia restrict the use of TikTok on state-owned devices.

Zhang Yimin, who owns 20% of ByteDance, founded the company with Liang Rubo in 2012 in Beijing. Although he stepped down as CEO in 2021, Imin has built ByteDance into a major player in Chinese tech, which also owns news app Toutiao and Douyin, TikTok's sister app in China.

This year's list of Chinese billionaires has been significantly reduced, which reflects the current economic realities in the country. The number of billionaires decreased by 142, from 895 last year to 753. The economic slowdown is due to the problems in the real estate market, the debt of local governments and the reduction of consumer spending.