Several key parts of Chamath’s prediction came true, but others are not cleanly testable or are contradicted by events in 2022, so the overall accuracy is ambiguous.

1. Consolidation of power / “ruler for life” – In October 2022, the 20th Party Congress granted Xi an unprecedented third term as CCP general secretary and produced a Politburo Standing Committee made entirely of his allies, with rivals pushed out. Analysts widely described this as power consolidation to a level unseen since Mao and noted that, because term limits had already been abolished in 2018, Xi can now in practice rule indefinitely. (aljazeera.com) This strongly supports the “consolidate power” / “essentially ruler for life” part of the prediction.

2. Domestic dominance / “run roughshod” at home – Xi did tighten control (e.g., Hong Kong under the national security regime and installation of loyalist John Lee as chief executive). (en.wikipedia.org) But late 2022 also saw the largest wave of protests in China in decades against zero‑COVID policies, including some explicit calls for Xi to step down, after which Beijing abruptly dismantled zero‑COVID. (en.wikipedia.org) That outcome suggests his rule remained secure but not cost‑free or completely unchallenged, making “run roughshod” an overstatement.

3. International dominance / “run roughshod internationally” – Foreign‑policy analyses after the 20th Congress emphasize that Xi’s China has become more assertive but also more isolated and “increasingly estranged from the West,” amid economic slowdown and heightened tensions over Taiwan, rather than clearly expanding uncontested dominance abroad in 2022. (euronews.com) This cuts against the idea that he simply steamrolled the international scene.

4. “Biggest political winner of 2022” – This is inherently subjective and comparative. There is no objective metric for “biggest winner,” and prominent global assessments of 2022 influence and leadership (for example, Time’s Person of the Year) highlighted Volodymyr Zelensky and the “spirit of Ukraine,” not Xi, as the central political figure of the year. (news.sky.com) So this part cannot be cleanly scored as true.

Because (a) the structural power‑consolidation piece was largely accurate, but (b) the claims about unrestrained domestic and international dominance and being the biggest political winner are partly contradicted by events and partly non‑falsifiable value judgments, the fairest overall verdict on the prediction is ambiguous, rather than clearly right or wrong.