Lei Jun | |
|---|---|
| 雷军 | |
 Lei in 2025 at a congressional session | |
| Born | (1969-12-16)16 December 1969 (age 55) |
| Alma mater | Wuhan University (BS) |
| Occupation(s) | Founder, Chairman & CEO ofXiaomi[1] Chairman ofKingsoft Chairman ofUCWeb Inc.[1] Chairman ofYY.com[1] Chairman ofShunwei Capital |
| Known for | Founder ofXiaomi[1] |
| Board member of | Kingsoft |
| Spouse | Zhang Tong (张彤) |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | Weibo page |
| Lei Jun | |||||||||
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| Simplified Chinese | 雷军 | ||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 雷軍 | ||||||||
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Lei Jun (born 16 December 1969) is a Chinesebillionaireentrepreneur andcomputer engineer. He is known for being the founder, chairman, and CEO of the consumer electronics companyXiaomi. He also is the chairman ofKingsoft andShunwei Capital. Lei has been a deputy to theNational People's Congress of the People's Republic of China since 2013.
As of May 2025, Lei's net worth was estimated at US$42.6 billion byForbes, ranking him 33rd worldwide.[2]
Lei was born on 16 December 1969 in the city ofXiantao,Hubei, China.[3] Both of his parents were teachers;[4] his father made $7 a month.[5] As a child, he was interested in electronics and liked disassembling and re-assembling radios, which was encouraged by his father.[6] He made the firstelectric lamp in his village using two batteries, a bulb, a self-made wooden box, and some wires.[7]
In 1987, he graduated from Hubei Provincial Mianyang High School (湖北省沔阳中学) and started to attendWuhan University. He graduated from Wuhan University and received a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Computer Science in 1991.[1]
In 1992, Lei joinedKingsoft as an engineer. He became the CEO of the company in 1998 and led it towards aninitial public offering on theHong Kong Stock Exchange in 2007. On 20 December 2007, he resigned as president and CEO of Kingsoft for "health reasons".[8]
In 2000, Lei founded joyo.com, an online retailing platform,[9] which he sold for US$75 million toAmazon.com in 2004.[10] In 2005, he made a $1 million investment inYY; those shares were worth $129 million when the company became apublic company via aninitial public offering in 2012.[11] In 2008, he became a chairman ofUCWeb.[12]
In 2010, Lei founded Xiaomi with multiple partners, including former Google executiveLin Bin.[13]
In 2011, he co-foundedShunwei Capital (Chinese:顺为资本), an investment company, via which he invests in companies in the e-commerce,social networking, and mobile industries.[14] Also in 7 July 2011, he rejoined Kingsoft as chairman.[8]
In 2012, Lei Jun was elected as a deputy to the Beijing Municipal People’s Congress. In 2013, he was elected as a delegate to the 12th National People’s Congress representing Guangdong Province.
On December 26, 2013, he founded “Beijing Xiaomi Payment Technology Co., Ltd.” with a registered capital of 50 million RMB. Lei Jun was the company’s legal representative and chairman.[15]
On February 24, 2018, he was elected as a deputy to the 13th National People’s Congress.[16]
On June 21, 2018, Lei Jun, along with Xiaomi’s core executives, began the IPO roadshow in Hong Kong. Xiaomi’s stock code was 01810.HK. According to the prospectus, Xiaomi planned to issue 2.18 billion shares with a pricing range between 17 and 22 HKD per share, aiming to raise up to 6.1 billion USD. The authorized share capital had a total nominal value of 675,000 USD, consisting of 70 billion Class A shares and 200 billion Class B shares. Based on this, Xiaomi’s adjusted market value was estimated between 53.9 and 69.7 billion USD.[17]
On the morning of July 9, 2018, at 9:30 AM, Lei Jun rang the gong for Xiaomi’s listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, officially bringing the eight-year-old company to the capital market. Xiaomi became the first company listed under the “weighted voting rights” structure on the exchange, prompting the HKEX to specially commission a new copper gong for the occasion.
In 2019, Xiaomi was named a Fortune Global 500 company, becoming the youngest company on the list at the time.[18]
In 2020, Xiaomi fully entered the high-end smartphone market by launching the Xiaomi 10 series, signaling a brand shift toward “technology and quality.”[19]
In March 2021, Lei Jun officially announced Xiaomi’s entry into the smart electric vehicle industry. He personally took charge of the project and planned to invest 10 billion USD over the next decade.[20]
In March 2024, Xiaomi’s first electric vehicle, theXiaomi SU7, was officially unveiled.[21] The model, focused on high performance and smart features, drew widespread attention, with Lei Jun personally hosting the launch event. The first batch of models received strong market response, with pre-orders exceeding 100,000, marking a successful initial step in Lei Jun’s automotive strategy.[22]
He was elected to serve as a deputy to theTwelfth National People's Congress for the Guangdong congressional district in 2013.[23] He was elected to serve as a deputy to theThirteenth National People's Congress for the Beijing congressional district in 2018.[24] He was re-elected to serve as a deputy to theFourteenth National People's Congress for the Beijing congressional district in 2023.[25]
By 2017, Lei had donated $1 billion to charity, starting with a ¥140,000 donation in 1997 to hisalma mater,Wuhan University. He later made donations to Zhuhai Charity, an organization that funds schools for migrants, the villagers ofYangchun for the renovation of schools andmudbrick houses and construction of cultural buildings, the victims of the2013 Lushan earthquake, and was a participant in theIce Bucket Challenge to raise funds foramyotrophic lateral sclerosis.[26] In 2021, he donated over $2.2 billion worth of Xiaomi shares to charity.[27]
In 2023, Lei Jun donated 1.3 billion yuan toWuhan University, the largest individual donation the university has ever received.[28][29]
Lei and his wife Zhang Tong (张彤) have two children.[2]
In 2014, Lei was named Businessman of the Year byForbes.[35] In 2015, he was named to theTime 100.[36]
In 2019, Lei was recognized as an "Outstanding Builder of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics" (Chinese:优秀中国特色社会主义事业建设者). The recognition was used by theUnited States Department of Defense as one of the reasons to add Xiaomi Corporation to a list of companies that support China's military in January 2021.[37] Later, the blacklisting of Xiaomi was blocked by a United States federal court and was removed by the United States Department of Defense after an agreement with Xiaomi was reached.[38][39]
Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi's founder Lei Jun has donated 1.3 billion yuan to its alma mater Wuhan University on the 130th anniversary of its founding, the highest-ever donation a Chinese university has received from an individual contributor.
Lei gifted the school 1.3 billion yuan ($182 million), the biggest ever cash donation to a Chinese university from an alumnus.
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