> He quickly left to start a string of his own businesses, in sectors from coal to mobile phones.

Not necessarily improbable. But incomplete.

1. Low paying clerk job

2. ?

3. Billionaire

Really, that is the default pattern for explaining how clerks with government jobs end up with such riches.

Have seen it happen many times in corrupt countries.

Judge or prosecutor on a $10k yearly salary builds a mansion house costing $2m+.

Even in my own extended family have an uncle who was in the Soviet military, relatively high rank. A few years after fall of the empire ends up with large duffel bags full of $100 bills. Rumor has it, he was implicated in selling SAMs to Syria and other ME countries. There was a trial but you see if you have duffel bags full of $100 bills you don't convicted.

Also, getting into business in China a couple decades ago (upto mid 90s) were quite easy, and coal business is one of the more lucrative ones, thanks to the lack of regulations and local competition.

It depends, sometimes a low level clerk is a gatekeeper to higher level corruption, like a doorman if you wish. If there is not pre-existent relationship you need someone like that to make the initial contact. There is also nepotism, he could be low level, but because his uncle is high up the chain, he is a good conduit for those wanting to pay a bribe to contact, etc, etc.

More examples from a corrupt country. Long time ago, neighbor had a friend at a forensics and paternity testing clinic. He was a low level grunt but was corrupt as heck and was raking in tens of thousands per year both from criminal paying him to "not find evidence" and deadbeat dads and rapists for not finding "paternity" evidence. Talk about scum of the earth...

So sometimes rank is not proportional to profit from corruption.

The Atlantic has published several articles on Chinese society and government. Maybe you should try and read them.

Do you really need to capitalize and use 3 question marks to ask a question? Yes, let me get on a plane to China and investigate this guy, I'll get back you. Had you used only a single question mark I might have skipped that step, but you know 3 show you are serious....

> Why are you equating your family's experience in the USSR to what the Chinese experience anyway?

Because corruption work surprisingly similar in a lot of places? It is the unifying common ground humans have. They seem to corrupt in the same plain old boring ways.

Nice! I saved that quote in my notes, it's great.

If the business is buying a truckful of coal / handful of phones and going around the village selling retail, he could have gotten finances by himself. But many people do that, and never manage to become billionaires.

Or he had access to some serious capital, usually not available to ordinary people. Either way, there is more to explain, how exactly do you go from the tax office to billionaire status.

So the question remains, where did this initial capital come from?

Well not in the normal sense of "sell"...

Having a electric car revolution of a mass scale would be great thing. China has a much higher population density compared to most parts of the world, an affordable electric car starting from China will attack the problem from the other end. The high-end being Tesla, the low-end being Faraday or any other manufacturer.

I look forward to what this Chinese billionaire does in this space.

plus its already used for an electric vehicle.