William Ding

William Ding
Born	1971 (Forbes) Ningbo, China
Occupation	businessman
Known for	Founder and CEO of NetEase
Education	University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (BSc)

Chinese businessman; founder, director and chief executive of the online games and internet company NetEase

William Ding (Ding Lei) is a Chinese businessman who founded the internet and online games company NetEase and has been its chief executive since November 2005.^[1]^[2] On 20 October 2026 the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires list ranked William Ding 48th in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$42.02 billion; Forbes lists the source of wealth as Online games.^[1]^[3] In the annual World's Billionaires list published in 2026, Forbes had ranked William Ding 55th, at US$37.9 billion.^[4]

Early life and education

Forbes gives Ding's birthplace as Ningbo and his year of birth as 1971.^[1] He holds a BSc in communication technology from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.^[2]

Business career

NetEase's investor-relations biography says Ding has been a director of the company since July 1999. He was co-chief technology officer from July 1999 to March 2001 and interim chief executive from July 1999 to April 2000. He served as acting chief executive and acting chief operating officer between June and September 2001, and as chief architect from March 2001 to November 2005, when he became chief executive.^[2]

Forbes describes NetEase as one of the world's largest online games companies. Its titles include Fantasy Westward Journey, Eggy Party and Justice Mobile, which Forbes says uses AI to generate storylines. Forbes adds that, facing competition from Tencent, NetEase has expanded into films, e-commerce and online music, and that in 2003 Ding was China's richest person and its first internet and gaming billionaire.^[1]

NetEase's 14-year licensing partnership with the US developer Blizzard Entertainment, under which it published titles such as World of Warcraft in China, ended in January 2023. The two companies had announced in November 2022 that talks on a new deal had broken down, and The China Project described a public dispute between them afterwards.^[5]

Agriculture

TechNode reported in 2017 that Ding had spent eight years raising organic black pigs through Weiyang, NetEase's agricultural affiliate, and that NetEase had opened a second pig farm in Jiangxi province.^[6] Forbes notes that NetEase's e-commerce arm, Yanxuan, sells pork from its own farms.^[1]

Wealth

Forbes gives the source of his wealth as online games.^[1]

Wealth history

Forbes has included this entry in its annual World's Billionaires list in 21 of the editions from 2001 to 2026 checked for this profile, starting with 2006. The table gives the rank and estimated net worth in each annual list.^[4]^[1]

Forbes estimates by list year
Year	World's Billionaires rank	Net worth (US$ bn)
2006	645	1.2
2007	840	1.1
2008	1062	1.0
2009	647	1.1
2010	437	2.2
2011	440	2.6
2012	418	2.8
2013	458	3.0
2014	354	4.2
2015	208	6.6
2016	141	8.1
2017	52	17.3
2018	69	17.4
2019	81	14.7
2020	51	17.0
2021	45	33.0
2022	55	25.2
2023	53	26.7
2024	46	33.5
2025	54	33.3
2026	55	37.9

Philanthropy

No documented personal philanthropy by Ding was found in the sources checked.

Political activity

Ding served one term as a delegate to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. The South China Morning Post reported in January 2023 that he was not on the list of 2,172 delegates to the 14th CPPCC.^[7] TechNode reported that he served his pork to other technology executives at the government-run World Internet Conference in Wuzhen.^[6]

Controversies and legal issues

No legal proceedings against Ding personally were found in the sources checked.

International and political links

This section uses the same ten headings for every profile in this series. Only specific, sourced actions are included; company-level and foundation-level actions are labelled as such. Where nothing was found, the entry reads "No documented involvement found in sources checked."