Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance and China’s richest man, has not obtained Singaporean citizenship, according to a statement from Douyin, the Chinese sister app of TikTok.
Douyin said it was not true that Zhang, 42, has obtained Singaporean citizenship, in an apparent response to a Tuesday report by Singapore’s Chinese-language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao, which claimed he had done so.
The original report was deleted from the Singapore newspaper’s website as of Wednesday morning, but it stirred significant interest in China as the nationality of the country’s super-rich is a sensitive issue.
According to the country’s nationality law, a Chinese national has to give up citizenship if he or she obtains citizenship from another country. Singapore has become a safe haven for China’s new generation of wealthy individuals in recent years as they try to find a middle ground between China and the US.
Zhang spends most of his time in Singapore, according to people close to the Chinese billionaire.
