The Tiktok logo is displayed on the smartphone with the owner's name in the background. Investors are keen on Bytedance's AI potential.
Jonathan Raa/Nurphoto by Getty Images
As investors bet on companies with AI potential, Beast co-founder Yiming Zhang has become the richest man in China. According to Forbes, Zhang's wealth has grown to $65.5 billion before the $56.5 billion for beverage giant Zhong Shanshan, founder of beverage giant Nongfu Spring.
Zhang, 41, has gained net worth from a 21% stake in a privately owned tech behemoth, although he resigned as chairman in 2021 after resigning as CEO earlier that year.
In the secondary market, Bytedance's valuation ranges from $240 billion to over $400 billion, which is some of the major investors, including Fidelity Investments and T. Rowe Price Group, believe Tiktok's parents are worthwhile. Forbes believes the company is valued at $312 billion based on the recent stock buyback program and conversations with analysts and a separate beast investor.
The amount has grown by more than 40% from 40% starting in 2024, when some private market investors were only willing to acquire Savage stocks at a valuation of $217 billion. U.S. broker and CEO Glen Anderson said the company will extend the April 5 deadline to sell or be banned from using the April 5 deadline after Donald Trump said it “could have extended the April 5 deadline”.
Trump said on Sunday that he is in talks with different U.S. buyers to enjoy the stake in Tiktok and could soon reach a deal.
Meanwhile, investors have become optimistic about the prospects of the country's large technology companies, including the wild beasts. Although we try to stop them with export control measures, the government’s more friendly stance on private sector operations has also been inspired by the government’s friendly stance on private sector operations. The Hang Seng Tech index tracks the performance of companies such as Alibaba and Tencent, soaring 80% over the past 12 months.
“All Chinese tech assets have seen a significant rebound on a low base basis,” said Charlie Chai, a Shanghai analyst at research firm 86 Research.
Bytedance, for its part, has seen its Doubao Chatbot become the second most popular AI chatbot in the world for monthly active users (MAUS).
The free product is powered by its own Big Language Model (LLM), with 82 million Maus in February. According to AICPB.com, the website of the Huns' AI products, Openai's Chatgpt accounted for $400 million in the same month. The chatbot from Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek shocked Silicon Valley with its highly cost-effective model in January and ranked fourth with 62 million Maus.
A Beast spokesperson declined to comment. According to media reports, despite no longer participating in the company's daily operations, Zhang still plays a key role in his AI strategy.
According to state-affiliated news media, the secluded billionaire encourages strong attention to AI, with the ultimate goal of achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI) or AI that matches or exceeds human intelligence. The report said he took the lead in recruiting talents related to AI. According to local media reports, Zhang has reportedly agreed to measure annual salary of more than 10 million yuan (US$1.4 million) from competitors.
According to the Financial Times, Bytedance also shelved RMB 40 billion (US$5.5 billion) to purchase AI chips in China in 2025 and allocated US$6.8 billion to invest in overseas AI-related infrastructure investments. Last year, the company spent $8 billion on AI-related servers that support AI-powered computing needs, according to a research report by Beijing-based brokerage firm Cinda Securities.
But 86 Research's Chai warns that there is an increasing competition for AI in China. Bytedance operates several popular social media platforms, including Tiktok's sister app Douyin, which helped the company promote Doubao Chatbot. But when it comes to AI models that power such services, “Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba” is “leading the competition.” Last week, Alibaba released its latest AI model, QWQ-32B, which has improved performance and reasoning capabilities and does not require much data for training.
Another model of Chinese e-commerce giant QWEN2.5-MAX is the ninth most popular AI model in the world, according to the researchers' ranking platform, including one developed by the University of California, Berkeley. According to Chatbot Arena, the privately owned DeepSeek's R1 model ranks sixth. Bontedance's products are not among the top ten.
“Chatbots provide a convenient consumer-facing interface to show the power of AI to the public, but what really matters is the backend models, which should be evaluated more strictly in terms of performance and cost,” Chai said. By these standards, Alibaba is the first choice for research companies, he said.
