Do we like them?

Do we like Lei Jun?

Our score: 6 out of 10. No harmful words or acts found and a record-sized university gift, but little on record about social issues, plus a combative streak with critics and reports of pressure on staff.

Lei Jun is the bloke behind Xiaomi, the phone maker that grew into a giant selling everything from earbuds to electric cars. He studied computer science at Wuhan University, graduating in 1991, and has sat on its board since 2003, according to TechNode. The Steve Jobs comparisons follow him around, and he has leaned into them.

The messiest chapter was the fatal SU7 crash in 2025 that killed three people. Xiaomi said the car was in assisted-driving mode before the driver took over shortly before impact, and in a leaked internal address Lei pledged to make safety a top priority. In September 2025 Xiaomi recalled about 116,800 SU7s for an over-the-air driver-assist fix, so he was owning the problem rather than ducking it.

In January 2026 he went on a livestream and had engineers pull a YU7 apart on camera to answer viral criticism of the car's build and door design. It was a very Lei Jun move: transparent, a bit theatrical, and aimed squarely at rebuilding trust. Not everyone was convinced, and local commentary asked openly whether people could still trust him.

He also fights back hard. In February 2026 a court found in Xiaomi's favour in its suit against the auto outlet AutoReport, finding the content infringed Xiaomi's reputation, and ordered a public apology and 5 million yuan. In August 2025 Xiaomi denied online posts claiming Lei had sent billions overseas through a US bank, and said it had started legal action against those spreading them. Whether you read that as defending the truth or leaning on critics depends on the case.

Bloomberg ran a feature in November 2025 on the human cost of Xiaomi's pivot from phones to EVs, in a tech sector where long hours are common. We found no words from Lei himself on overtime, so this is a company-level concern we can't pin on him personally. It is the main reason the good-person test carries an asterisk.

The real good here is giving. In November 2023 he donated 1.3 billion yuan to his old university, reported as the largest single donation it has received from a graduate. It went mainly to basic research and undergraduate education, and Yicai reports he had been giving since 1997. That is a long streak, not a one-off for the cameras.