Eileen Gu, Beverly Zhu Received Chinese Government Funding
By Goldsea Staff | 13 Feb, 2026

The US-born freestyle skier and figure skater—both of whom compete for China—collectively received $14 million from the Chinese government in 2025.

It's no secret that Eileen Gu has been making serious bank from brands eager to tie up with her adrenaline-pumping mastery of snow and big air, earning $23 million in 2025.

What isn't so well known is the fact that she, along with fellow-Chinese American Beverly Zhu, also collectively received 100 million yuan ($14 million) from the Chinese government through the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau for "striving for excellent results in qualifying for the 2026 Milan Winter Olympics."

That information was posted on a public budget released in early 2025 before the athletes' names were quickly deleted, according to a Wall Street Journal article.

Eileen Gu won fame at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games as the first freestyle skier to win three medals at a single Olympic Games.  Gu was also the youngest gold medalist in freestyle skiing, winning the big-air freestyle skiing event at age 18, along with gold in halfpipe and silver in slopestyle.  

Earlier this week Gu repeated the silver medal in slopestyle at the 2026 Winter Olympics at Milano Cortina, bringing her Olympic medal tally to four.

Eileen Gu was Born on September 3, 2003 in San Francisco, California to Yan Gu, a first-generation Chinese immigrant who earned degrees from Peking University and Stanford University Graduate School of Business.  She was raised in San Francisco's Sea Cliff neighborhood by her mother as a single parent.

Gu was three when she began skiing at Lake Tahoe.  She attended the Katherine Delmar Burke School for primary and middle school before graduating from San Francisco University High School, where she scored 1580 out of 1600 on her SAT.  Gu earned early admittance to Stanford University and is currently majoring in international relations.

Gu has become one of the highest-paid Winter Olympic athletes, with her estimated endorsement income of $23 million in 2025 puttng her just behind tennis players Coco Gauff, Aryna Sabalenka, and Iga Swiatek among female athletes.  

Gu's global endorsement portfolio includes both Western brands like Tiffany, Louis Vuitton, Porsche, Estée Lauder and Red Bull, as well as Chinese brands Mengniu Dairy, Luckin Coffee, JD.com, China Mobile, People's Insurance Company of China, Bank of China, Anta Sports, and Bosideng. Before 2021, Gu was paid around $1 million for each endorsement.  The fee soared to $2.5 million by 2022 after her Olympics success.

Beyond skiing, Gu has enjoyed success in the fashion industry, appearing as a model on the cover of multiple magazines and walking the runway at several shows. She was presented as a debutante at Le Bal des débutantes in Paris in 2022.

Gu's athletic success extends beyond the Olympics, including two gold medals and one bronze at the 2021 FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboarding World Championships, where she became the first freeskier to win two golds at a single championship.  At the 2021 Winter X Games, she became the first rookie to win a gold medal in Women's Ski SuperPipe and the first athlete representing China to win a gold medal at the X Games.

Gu had to become a Chinese citizen to compete for China (and that nation doesn't allow dual citizenships), though she originally represented the US when she first began competing internationally.  She has refused to clarify her precise citizenship status but the website of sponsor Red Bull  announced in 2022 that she had given up her US passport when she naturalized as a Chinese citizen. 

Just as Gu's decision to represent China in the Olympics won her hundreds of millions of fans, it lost her some goodwill in the United States where she has been called a traitor who lacks gratitude to the nation of her birth, education and start as an athlete.  

Gu remains a heavy favorite to add to the titles she won in Beijing.  In addition to the repeat silver in ski slopestyle, she will be seeking to repeat gold-medal performances in big air on Monday and in the halfpipe next Saturday.