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ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming donates 500 million yuan for education amid rush by tech billionaires to show charitable side after Beijing crackdown

  • Zhang’s photo op at his old middle school marked a rare public appearance for the outgoing ByteDance CEO, whose net worth is estimated at US$44.5 billion
  • Pinduoduo founder Colin Huang was most generous Chinese philanthropist last year, donating US$1.85 billion to various causes

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Zhang Yiming (second from right) seen visiting his old school, Yongding No 1 Middle School in Fujian, in June. Photo: Handout
Coco Feng

Zhang Yiming, the 38-year-old founder of TikTok owner ByteDance, is the latest Chinese tech billionaire to make a generous charitable donation, giving away 500 million yuan (US$77 million) to set up an education fund in his home city of Longyan in China’s eastern Fujian province.

Zhang, who announced last month that he plans to step down as chief executive of the world’s most valuable start-up by the end of this year, will put the money into a fund called “Fang Mei”, named after his grandmothers, according to a statement issued by the Longyan education authority on Tuesday.

A photo posted online by the education bureau showed Zhang visiting Yongding No. 1 Middle School in June, surrounded by local officials and teachers. Zhang, who attended the school as a teenager, made a smaller donation of 10 million yuan in September 2020.

It marked a rare public appearance for the outgoing ByteDance CEO, whose net worth is estimated at US$44.5 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The latest donation will be used to “train local teachers, support vocational education, improve edtech [and] renovate infrastructure like student dorms”, the statement said.

Donations from Chinese tech billionaires have become more frequent this year following Beijing’s increased pressure on Big Tech to serve social development and national agendas, and not just focus on profits.

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