He Xiangjian and his family are ranked No. 63 on the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list, tied with two others, with a net worth of $33.2 billion. He is the co-founder of Midea, one of China’s largest home-appliance makers.
He Xiangjian was born on October 5, 1942. In 1968, in Beijiao, in Guangdong Province, he formed a company making bottle lids that later became Midea.
Net Worth and Rank
- Forbes 2026 list: No. 63 (tied with Abigail Johnson and Zheng Shuliang), with $33.2 billion, listed as “He Xiangjian & family”
- Earlier estimate: in September 2021 Bloomberg put his net worth at $28.8 billion, 51st in its index
Career
He built Midea into one of China’s biggest appliance makers and stepped down from running the company in 2012.
Art and Family
- Art museum: he is a noted art collector and the founder of the He Art Museum, a privately funded non-profit institution designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Tadao Ando
- Family: he is married, has three children and lives in Foshan, in a villa community developed by Midea’s real estate group
The 2020 Incident
In June 2020 there was an attempted kidnapping of He. Assailants reportedly broke into his villa in Foshan. His son, He Jianfeng, escaped and alerted the police, who rescued He and arrested five suspects.
Why It Matters
Midea is a large manufacturer of air conditioners and other appliances, and the He family’s stake is the source of its fortune.
Net worth figures change daily with share prices. Rankings here follow the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list, with wealth measured on March 1, 2026.
Image: Foshan in Guangdong Province, China, where He Xiangjian lives (file photo, 2019; he is not pictured). Photo: xiquinhosilva / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
