Nio CEO Missing From Forbes' China's 100 Richest List But they Make The Cut

At number three is CATL founder Zeng, who more than doubled his net worth from a year ago at $50.8 billion. CATL supplies batteries to $Tesla (TSLA.US)$ and $NIO Inc (NIO.US)$ among other automakers.Among other electric vehicle entrepreneurs, leaders of automakers $BYD Company ADR (BYDDY.US)$ and $XPeng (XPEV.US)$ also made it to the list even as NIO founders missed out.

BYD’s Wang Chuanfu made it to the list at No. 14 with a net worth of $23.5 billion. The automaker’s electric vehicle sales rose threefold in the first nine months of the year to 337,579 vehicles from a year ago.Xpeng co-founder He Xiaopeng ranked 76 with a net worth of $7.46 billion. None of the Nio co-founders — William Li and Lihong Qin — made it to the Forbes list this year.

The rapid electric vehicle adoption across the world is creating a new line of billionaires and has been lifting the net worth of those linked to the ecosystem. Industry disruptor Tesla's CEO Elon Musk is the world’s richest person, with the recent surge in the company’s stock price putting him well ahead of other contestants.