Lei Jun, the co-founder and CEO of the Chinese tech behemoth Xiaomi, briefly overtook Zhong Shanshan of Nongfu Spring to become the richest person in China after a share price surge on Thursday.
After closing at 56.6 HKD (7.28 USD) on 26 February and rising 60% since the year began, Xiaomi’s shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange surged to 58.7 HKD (7.55 USD) at one point before receding again. Netizens then calculated that the share price would make Lei’s net worth over 440 billion RMB (60.47 billion USD), surpassing Zhong’s 363.1 billion RMB (49.90 billion USD).
- #雷军回应当首富Lei Jun responds to becoming the richest person: 42.97 million views on Weibo, no. 1 on the Hot Search list.
However, as the estimation is quite rough, Lei quickly disputed the claim, resulting in some viral discussion. The title of “richest person for an hour” popped up as Xiaomi share prices dropped again.
As Chinese entrepreneurs such as Lei normally prefer to keep a low profile, netizens even suggested that Lei Jun might have deliberately lowered the share prices to avoid being the richest person in the country.
CEOs such as Lei and 360’s Zhou Hongyi have turned themselves into influencers and brand ambassadors for their businesses, which includes livestreaming. Fame and fortune converge again for them.
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