In 1992, Lei joined
Kingsoft as an engineer. He became the CEO of the company in 1998 and led it towards an
initial public offering on the
Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2007. On 20 December 2007, he resigned as president and CEO of Kingsoft for "health reasons". In 2000, Lei founded
joyo.com, an online retailing platform, which he sold for US$75 million to
Amazon.com in 2004. In 2005, he made a $1 million investment in
YY; those shares were worth $129 million when the company became a
public company via an
initial public offering in 2012. In 2008, he became a chairman of
UCWeb. In 2010, Lei founded Xiaomi with multiple partners, including former Google executive
Lin Bin. In 2011, he co-founded
Shunwei Capital (), an investment company, via which he invests in companies in the e-commerce,
social networking, and mobile industries. Also in 7 July 2011, he rejoined Kingsoft as chairman. On 24 February 2018, he was elected as a deputy to the 13th National People’s Congress. On 21 June 2018, Lei Jun, along with Xiaomi’s core executives, began the IPO roadshow in Hong Kong. Xiaomi’s stock code was 01810.HK. According to the prospectus, Xiaomi planned to issue 2.18 billion shares with a pricing range between 17 and 22 HKD per share, aiming to raise up to 6.1 billion USD. The authorized share capital had a total nominal value of 675,000 USD, consisting of 70 billion Class A shares and 200 billion Class B shares. Based on this, Xiaomi’s adjusted market value was estimated between 53.9 and 69.7 billion USD. On the morning of 9 July 2018, at 9:30 AM, Lei Jun rang the gong for Xiaomi’s listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, officially bringing the eight-year-old company to the capital market. Xiaomi became the first company listed under the "weighted voting rights" structure on the exchange, prompting the HKEX to specially commission a new copper gong for the occasion. In 2019, Xiaomi was named a Fortune Global 500 company, becoming the youngest company on the list at the time. In 2020, Xiaomi fully entered the high-end smartphone market by launching the Xiaomi 10 series, signaling a brand shift toward "technology and quality." In March 2021, Lei Jun officially announced Xiaomi’s entry into the smart electric vehicle industry. He personally took charge of the project and planned to invest 10 billion USD over the next decade. In March 2024, Xiaomi’s first electric vehicle, the
Xiaomi SU7, was officially unveiled. The model, focused on high performance and smart features, drew widespread attention, with Lei Jun personally hosting the launch event. The first batch of models received strong market response, with pre-orders exceeding 100,000, marking a successful initial step in Lei Jun’s automotive strategy.
Politics He was elected to serve as a deputy to the
Twelfth National People's Congress for the Guangdong congressional district in 2013. He was elected to serve as a deputy to the
Thirteenth National People's Congress for the Beijing congressional district in 2018. He was re-elected to serve as a deputy to the
Fourteenth National People's Congress for the Beijing congressional district in 2023.
Philanthropy By 2017, Lei had donated $1 billion to charity, starting with a ¥140,000 donation in 1997 to his
alma mater,
Wuhan University. He later made donations to Zhuhai Charity, an organization that funds schools for migrants, the villagers of
Yangchun for the renovation of schools and
mudbrick houses and construction of cultural buildings, the victims of the
2013 Lushan earthquake, and was a participant in the
Ice Bucket Challenge to raise funds for
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. In 2021, he donated over $2.2 billion worth of Xiaomi shares to charity. In 2023, Lei Jun donated 1.3 billion yuan to
Wuhan University, the largest individual donation the university has ever received. ==Personal life==