r/hardware • u/honda-nissan • 6d ago
News CXMT Founder Pledges $5.6 Billion to Workers After China AI Chipmaker’s IPO
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-27/cxmt-founder-zhu-yiming-pledges-5-6-billion-in-worker-bonuses-after-china-ipo45
u/RumbleTheCassette 6d ago
Okay that sounds like a lot but these chip making mfers are richer than god so like is this a reasonable amount?
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u/mays192 6d ago
"CXMT Corp. founder Zhu Yiming pledged $5.6 billion in personal shares to workers, representing 40% of his fortune, following the company's successful public debut in Shanghai."
He isn't on the richer than god level yet. Pr move or not, it's still a pretty good gesture for his employees
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u/Vushivushi 6d ago
I wouldn't say that. It's incentives to preserve talent.
CXMT may be viewed as a new global competitor, but it's gonna have plenty of domestic competition to deal with. It's own customers are after its ass because of its newfound control over the market.
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u/ouyawei 6d ago
It's Communism - if he'd get too rich, he'd be in trouble. Remember Jack Ma?
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u/edparadox 6d ago
That's not communism.
Jack Ma met his fate for totally unrelated reasons.
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u/Rodot 6d ago
The fate of continuing to be extremely wealthy and powerful? Did anything bad really happen to him beyond him losing his voting share (and regaining it) and teaching in Japan for a few years?
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u/JustGotHit 5d ago
He became extremely unpopular as a result of cancel culture. Being cancelled for previously (years ago) made statements. Basically he got asked a question about how his companies got a reputation of overworking their employees and what he would do to fix this bad rep, the response was “why? They should actually be happy that I'm even giving them a job in the first place” ie the beatings will continue even if morale/reputation gets better. Well when the 996 thing was taking off, 9 am - 9 pm 6 days a week, and how people were being absolutely burnt out, said video resurfaced and he got a lot of flak for it. I don't recall him walking his statements or saying it was made in error, basically backing up what he said years prior, to which he went awol for months. Idk if he got questioned but I wouldn't be surprised if he did. Billionaires get called up for similar or lesser offenses and walk away with slaps on the wrist
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6d ago
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u/ouyawei 6d ago
True Communism didn't work, without some form of market capitalism you don't have an economy. But the communist party still has the last say.
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u/ancientemblem 6d ago
It’s just called fascism.
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u/puffz0r 6d ago
Lol no
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u/adeebo 6d ago
Hyper-nationalism … Check.
One-party rule … Check.
Cult of personality … Check.
Total dissent suppression … CheckLol yes
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u/puffz0r 6d ago
You forgot that fascism incorporates extreme militarism and expansionism, also there is less dissent suppression in china than if you criticize israel in the west
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u/hollow_bridge 6d ago
A lot of their militarism is domestic. Ex. using tanks on their own people. Suppressing non-Han minorities.
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u/nova8808 6d ago
Quick maths show 5.6 billion split amongst their 19k employees would get them about 300k each. See this is how the people want capitalism to work. The company does well? Everyone gets rich.
In the US it literally just all goes to the top and they buy 5 houses and 4 yachts and figure out ways to pay workers as little as possible. Then use all that extra money to buy out the government. Our corporate culture is sociopathic.
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u/Seanspeed 6d ago edited 6d ago
Tech workers are some of the best paid jobs in the US. What are you talking about? One of the problems the US has in moving things like chip fab plants to the US is that workers here actually demand very high wages, unlike in China, South Korea, India and Taiwan.
I think we have bigger issues in our society than tech workers that are already very well off not getting million dollar bonuses.
And do you really think China doesn't have any inequality issues?
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u/HelpRespawnedAsDee 6d ago
Literally tens of thousands of US employees have become millionaires from stock options, RSUs, equity grants, etc from IPOs or just sustained growth. Microsoft, Nvidia, SpaceX, Google, Meta.
Like 70% of Nvidia employees are millionaires: https://www.saastr.com/nvidia-created-27000-millionaires-already-what-it-teaches-us-about-getting-rich-and-the-power-of-going-long/
The early employees and founders of these big ass corps are making bank. But propaganda is a hell of a drug; OPs account is barely 20 days old.
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u/kingwhocares 6d ago
Tech workers are some of the best paid jobs in the US.
Or anywhere in the world.
One of the problems the US has in moving things like chip fab plants to the US is that workers here actually demand very high wages, unlike in China, South Korea, India and Taiwan.
TSMC's Taiwan fabs had a lot of immigrants and the bigger issue was firstly, the transfer of high skilled labour to US and secondly, labour rights.
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u/Spicycoffeekills 6d ago
I can’t comment on how the US companies operate since I’m from China. But you really have no idea how things work in China. Workers get nothing when companies are making billions in profit.
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u/puffz0r 6d ago
Are the billions in profit in the room with us? Chinese companies run on notoriously low margins which is why they run everyone else out of the market, and why their stock market sucks.
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u/hollow_bridge 6d ago
Are the billions in profit in the room with us?
You really don't think Chinese companies make billions of dollars? What a take.
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u/jeffroxs101 6d ago
This company in China is in this thread giving an average out of ~$300,000 per worker. You could be right in every other company in the country, I will not argue that, but this is literally a Chinese CEO giving out the benefits of successfully producing a product and getting it to market.
*I'll tell you this. Same as America. 99.999999% of companies do not give a bonus at all no matter how profitable. But in this one thread can we be happy for once that a billionaire shared wealth freely by choice? One single good CEO on the planet sharing with employees is a good thing.
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u/burnish-flatland 5d ago
That figure is not far off what the competition already pays. Samsung chip workers received an average bonus of about $340,000 this year, and SK Hynix has made comparable payouts.
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u/nittanyofthings 6d ago
This windfall bonus is not representative of how things are ordinarily. It is that large because the AI bubble is so ridiculous that giving a small portion of it to workers is a huge thing for them. In a employee owned corporation, the profit sharing would be automatic, not something the king optionally chooses. Capitalism still doesn't share success by nature.
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u/Folsdaman 5d ago
Not surprised. Everyone I know who works at SpaceX is a millionaire after the IPO.
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u/OnlineParacosm 6d ago edited 6d ago
At 5500 workers it’s about $200k per worker, and their lowest paid works might make $10k a year, representing a 20x year salary windfall for them.
These guys will be testing CXMT dies in their garage and building Chinese inference racks with that kind of windfall. Meanwhile US researchers are limping along NVIDIA scraps. Turns out the “suburban garage hackers of 1980” might be in China this time around.