Crying all the way to the bank: Jack Ma dethroned as China’s richest man

Alibaba founder Jack Ma has been knocked off his perch as China’s richest man by “new energy king” Li Hejun, according to the Hurun’s 2015 Global Rich List. Li, the chairman of China’s largest privately-owned clean-energy company, Hanergy Holdings, is now the country’s richest man, with a net worth of $26 billion. His wealth has ballooned thanks to a surge in shares of Hanergy Holdings’ Hong Kong listed subsidiary, Hanergy Thin Film Power Group, which rallied over 255 percent in 2014. The firm, however, recently came under scrutiny for alleged unconventional accounting practices. Ma, meantime, slipped two places to take the third place, with a personal fortune of $24.5 billion.

'New Energy King' Li Hejun becomes the twelfth Number One China has had in the past 16 years, underlying once again the dynamism of the Chinese economy. In that same period, Bill Gates has been the only Number One in the U.S.

Rupert Hoogewerf, Chairman and Chief Researcher of Hurun Report

Globally, Bill Gates held on to his crown as the world’s richest man with a net worth of $85 billion, ahead of Carlos Slim and Warren Buffett, who ranked second and third, respectively. Hurun’s Global Rich List is a ranking of the world’s billionaires. In the 2015 edition, 2,089 billionaires from 68 countries were ranked, up 222 from the previous year, tracking the rise in the world’s billionaire population. Chinese and U.S. individuals dominated, making up around half the rich list, according to Hurun.

People say, ‘Well Jack, rich people is good.’ Yeah it is good, but not the richest man in China. It’s a great pain because when you’re (the) richest person in the world, everybody (is) surrounding you for money.

Jack Ma, in a recent interview

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