X iang Guangda is a self-made Chinese industrial tycoon who is the founder and chairman of the Tsingshan Holding Group, the world's largest producer of stainless steel and a major global player in the nickel industry. He started his career in the 1980s as a state-owned factory worker. In the early 1990s, he and a partner founded their own business making car and motorcycle windows. He later pivoted into the stainless steel industry, a move that would be the foundation of his massive industrial empire.

He has built Tsingshan into a dominant global force through a relentless focus on cost control and vertical integration. The company has invested billions of dollars to build massive, integrated production facilities in Indonesia, where it controls its own nickel mines, power plants, and stainless steel mills. This has made Tsingshan the world's lowest-cost producer. He gained global notoriety in 2022 when his massive short position on the London Metal Exchange was caught in a historic short squeeze that sent nickel prices soaring, temporarily costing him and his company billions of dollars before he was able to secure a deal with his creditors.