Lei Jun

The founder of Xiaomi—the world’s third-largest phonemaker—has long credited Steve Jobs as a role model. But Lei Jun has now achieved something that Apple never did: produced an electric car. Lei claims the company has sold more than 250,000 units of the SU7, its first car, since its launch in 2024. Xiaomi’s newest model, the YU7 SUV, notched 200,000 preorders within just three minutes of its launch. Xiaomi, better known for its smartphones, now hopes to sell 350,000 cars this year alone. Lei credits Xiaomi’s brief inclusion on a U.S. trade blacklist in 2021 for inspiring his pivot to cars. Why did Xiaomi succeed where Apple failed? Lei devoted 10 billion yuan ($1.42 billion) and 3,400 engineers to make the first prototypes.