Emre Aytekin and Emir Yildirim
28 October 2025•Update: 28 October 2025
BEIJING
Chinese bottled water giant Nongfu Spring’s founder and CEO, Zhong Shanshan, has become the richest person in China once again this year with a fortune of $74.5 billion, according to the research institute Hurun.
Zhong topped Hurun’s rich Chinese list from 2020 to 2023, but he lost the number one spot to TikTok founder and CEO Zhang Yiming in 2024.
Zhong, 70, increased his wealth by 56% year-on-year. He entered the top spot of the list when he surpassed e-commerce giant Alibaba’s founder, Jack Ma, in 2020.
Meanwhile, last year’s richest Chinese person, Zhang Yimin, ranked second this year with a fortune of $66.1 billion, up 34%.
The US Congress delivered an ultimatum to TikTok: transfer ownership to an American firm or shut down in the country due to security concerns.
US President Donald Trump said the company would be transferred to a consortium of American partners, which made Zhang lose his top position among the richest in China.
Trump announced that TikTok would be sold to a consortium led by Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, Rupert Murdoch, and his son, Lachlan Murdoch. TikTok's American partners are expected to own 80% of the company, with the parent company ByteDance holding no more than 20%.
Pony Ma, founder of the Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent, ranked third among the rich in China with a fortune of $65.4 billion, up 48% on an annual basis.
Research institute Hurun has been publishing data on the wealthiest in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan since 1999. This year, some 1,434 people made the list of those with a fortune exceeding $700 million, up 31%.
The total wealth of the rich included in the list reached $4.2 trillion, marking a 42% surge versus last year.
According to Rupert Hoogewerf, Hurun's chair and lead researcher on the recent report, there has been a significant increase in new entries in this year's list as a result of the rise in Chinese stock markets and the emergence of new tech entrepreneurs.
