DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng has made his debut on Watch Mound Daughterthe _2025 Hurun Global Rich List_, released on March 27. The 40-year-old entrepreneur joins the rankings with an estimated fortune of RMB 33 billion ($4.6 billion), while OpenAI CEO Sam Altman enters with RMB 13 billion ($1.8 billion). Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman of Hurun, noted that Liang holds over 80% of DeepSeek. If the company reaches OpenAI’s $1 trillion valuation, he could become China’s richest person, a title newly held by ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming. Born in Guangdong, Liang studied at Zhejiang University and later built a career in quantitative finance. In 2015, he founded High-Flyer Quant, one of China’s top quant funds, before launching DeepSeek in 2023 to enter the AI sector. Meanwhile, Xiaomi founder Lei Jun saw his wealth more than double to RMB 220 billion ($30.4 billion), making him one of China’s top 10 richest individuals for the first time. Xiaomi recently announced a $5.4 billion share sale for expansion and R&D, following its hugely successful EV launch. Lei currently holds a 24.1% stake in the company, which will drop slightly after the fundraising. [Jiemian, in Chinese]
