Elon Musk, watch out: Tesla competitor Xpeng Motors’ value soared at its New York Stock Exchange IPO – who is He Xiaopeng, the billionaire CEO behind China’s hyped electric car brand?
Alibaba, Foxconn, Xiaomi, and Qatar and Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth funds have backed the meteoric rise of He’s company, founded after he turned previous venture UCWeb into one of the most popular mobile browsers in China
On August 27, shares of Xpeng Motors – one of several Chinese rivals to Tesla – soared 41 per cent at its New York Stock Exchange debut. Backed by Xiaomi and the Alibaba Group (owner of the South China Morning Post), the Chinese electric carmaker is headed by co-founder, chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng, who achieved start-up success earlier in his career after co-founding a Chinese mobile browser company.
He is now one of the richest men in the global auto industry, owning Xpeng shares worth US$4.2 billion, based on figures in the company’s prospectus. So how did the Chinese entrepreneur earn his billions?
Born in Hubei province in 1977, He graduated from the South China University of Technology with a Bachelor’s degree in computer science in 1999.
He worked at software company AsiaInfo Tech until 2004 when he and Liang Jie jointly founded UCWeb, now one of the most popular mobile browsers in China and Indonesia. He was responsible for the company’s product strategy and R&D, and in 2011, his team developed the first proprietary technology for the mobile browser industry in China.
UCWeb was acquired by internet giant Alibaba Group for US$4.3 billion a decade after its launch, propelling He to billionaire status. From 2014 until August 2017, He served as a senior executive of the Alibaba Mobile Business division.
