Who is Ma Huateng?
Ma Huateng, known as Pony Ma, is the co-founder, chairman and chief executive of Tencent, the Shenzhen company behind WeChat and one of the world’s biggest game publishers. Forbes valued him at $53.8 billion on its March 2026 list, third in China at the time, and at $49.8 billion on its real-time list on 17 April 2026 123.
How did Ma Huateng make his money?
Through his stake in Tencent. Celebrity Net Worth puts his holding at about 7.4%, held through a company called Advanced Data Services. Tencent owns the messaging and payments app WeChat, a large games business and a stake in the US games maker Epic Games 456.
Early life and education
Ma was born on 29 October 1971 in Chaoyang, Shantou, in Guangdong. His family moved to Shenzhen when his father, Ma Chenshu, became a port manager there. He enrolled at Shenzhen University in 1989 and graduated in 1993 with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and applied engineering 789.
Tencent
He co-founded Tencent and is its chairman and chief executive. In November 2017 his fortune briefly passed those of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, which made him the ninth richest person in the world and the first Chinese citizen in the top ten. Time magazine named him one of the world’s most influential people in 2007 and 2014 710. Read Ma Huateng’s companies.
Family and giving
He is married to Wang Danting and has one child. In 2016 he transferred $2.3 billion of his Tencent shares to his charitable foundation, the Ma Huateng Global Foundation, though Forbes kept the shares in his net worth 71011.
Ma Huateng net worth
Forbes put him at $53.8 billion in March 2026, about ₹5.1 lakh crore at ₹94 to the dollar. Forbes’ China’s 100 Richest list of 4 November put Zhang Yiming, Zhong Shanshan and Liang Wenfeng in its top three, so Ma is no longer third 112. See Ma Huateng net worth and our ranking of the top 50 richest people in the world.