Jack Ma filmed action scenes with a great martial artist, sang duets with pop stars and appeared at corporate events dressed as a glam rocker and as a masked imitator of Michael Jackson. He is not a wallflower.
Speculation has thus quickly begun to circulate after the leading entrepreneur and co-founder of the Alibaba group disappeared from the public eye at the end of last year. He criticized Chinese regulators for calling their too cautious attitude towards the country’s financial system, and the authorities shut down his business world shortly afterwards. After that, he started skipping previously scheduled appearances, which raised questions in China and in the global news media about his fate.
It looks like Mr. Mom is now trying to calm the speculation.
On Wednesday, he made his first public appearance since late October. He spoke at a live event honoring educators in China’s village schools. He did not address his problems, but said he would spend more time on philanthropic efforts.
“During this time, my colleagues and I learned and thought,” he said, according to a transcript of his comments published in the local news media. “We will throw ourselves more determined into educational philanthropy.”
Mr. Ma, a former English teacher, said it was the responsibility of business people of his generation to work for common prosperity by reviving rural areas and developing village education. His speech was in line with his recent efforts to deviate from Alibaba’s day-to-day operations and focus more on philanthropy, although he maintains a significant swing over his business empire.
His remarks have been widely reported in the Chinese state-run news media, indicating at least that Beijing’s censorship machine endorses his remarks. Its appearance eased some investors, who traded Alibaba’s shares in Hong Kong by about 9 percent in the afternoon trading.
Mr. Ma, who led Alibaba from its inception in 1999 to its rise as one of the largest and most valuable technology companies in the world, has long been cautious around the Chinese government. Like many entrepreneurs in the country, he forged ties with the Beijing official to prevent problems in the regulations.
But the rise of Alibaba’s sister company Ant Group has increasingly put it at odds with the Chinese state – funded financial system. Ant Group, which was once a subsidiary of Alibaba and offers services such as electronic payments and loans, now plays a major role in the financial lives of many Chinese people. The company has planned an initial public offering for late last year in Shanghai and Hong Kong, which is widely expected to be the largest fundraiser of its kind.
But in October, during a public meeting, Mr. Ma Chinese state-owned banks that they behaved like ‘pawn shops’ and the country’s financial regulators because they restricted innovation by obsessing over risks.
About a week later, the government discontinued the Ant Group stock exchange and later ordered it to shake up its business practices. Then it started with an antitrust investigation into Alibaba.
In the midst of the official setback, Mr. Mom begins to bow to previously scheduled performances, including as a judge on a talent show he has created in African entrepreneurs. This has sparked speculation, especially after other companies that challenged Chinese officials were heavily penalized.
Republicans have voiced their opposition to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. previously predicted, and Janet L. Yellen, his nominee as secretary of the treasury, pressed to defend a $ 1.9 billion stimulus proposal that would offer more direct payments to individuals. unemployed benefits and money for states and cities.
The opposition of the Republicans against the Senate Finance Committee during the confirmation hearing of Ms. Yellen underlined the challenge facing Biden’s future government by trying to push his proposal through Congress, given the close control he has in the Senate and House.
“We’re looking at another eruption,” said Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, a Republican from Pennsylvania. “The only organizational principle I can understand seems to be to spend as much money as possible, apparently for the sake of spending it.”
Mr. Toomey disputes the plans of Mr. Praying to send more money to states and cities, a measure that Republicans have opposed over the past year and which has been put off by the last round of stimulus talks to raise $ 900 billion in aid. parcel. He also expressed his concern about the proposed tax increases of Mr. Biden and his call to raise the minimum wage to $ 15.
Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, took the call from Mr. Biden to increase the minimum wage of $ 7.25, seized and with me. Yellen argued that it would harm small businesses while being vulnerable and lead to more job losses.
Other Republicans have complained that the Biden economic plan is fiscally irresponsible, given the country’s growing debt burden and the federal budget deficit, which amounted to more than $ 3 billion last year. Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, said the plan of Mr. Biden is not adequately targeted and that allocating additional $ 1400 in direct payments to some people who have not lost their jobs is not an efficient use of federal resources.
Me. Yellen refuted their arguments point by point, saying it would be too expensive to stimulate too little to stimulate the economy. She said economic research has shown minimal job losses due to the increase in the minimum wage, and this indicates studies of neighboring states when one imposes increase and the other does not.
She also argued that unemployed benefits, which according to Mr. Biden’s plan will be supplemented with an extra amount of $ 400 per week, is not sufficient to address the financial difficulties faced by families and that the $ 1400 incentive test is important in situations where one person, usually a woman, left a job to care for children who did not go to school.
“There are many families who bear extraordinary financial burdens, which are not addressed by unemployment benefits,” she said.
Me. Yellen has given some assurances to Republicans who fear the Democrats will repeal the entire 2017 tax law, which reduced taxes for individuals and corporations. She said that Mr. Biden does want to make legislative changes, including raising the corporate tax rate, but such action is not an immediate priority.
“The focus right now is on relief and helping families keep a roof over their heads and keep food on the table, not raising taxes,” she said.
The revived Paycheck protection program got off to a smoother and slower pace than it was last spring when desperate lenders flooded banks with loan applications and overwhelmed the government’s computer systems.
The program opened wide on Tuesday when the Small Business Administration, which manages the emergency relief program, began accepting applications from all lenders. The agency last week allowed a small group of lenders and small banks to submit their applications.
In the first week of the program, the agency approved about 60,000 applications from nearly 3,000 lenders, it said Tuesday. These applications amount to $ 5 billion, which consumes about 2 percent of the $ 284 billion the program has available to borrow.
These figures do not include loan applications sent to the agency on Tuesday, the first day most lenders were allowed to submit loan applications. New fraud checks and other guarantees mean that most applications now take at least a day to get approved.
The program is open to both first-time lenders and some returning: the smallest businesses hit hardest, those with a drop in sales of at least 25 percent since the pandemic hit, are eligible for a second loan.
Lenders said they were preparing for a significant demand, especially after loans in the second round. John Asbury, CEO of Atlantic Union Bank, in Richmond, Va., Said he expects at least 60 percent of his bank’s 11,000 lenders to return for another loan.
Treasury Department officials said they expected funding for the program to be sufficient to meet all requests. Mr. Asbury hopes this is true.
“We simply do not know how much rush we are going to get,” he said. “We get a lot of calls.”
Bed Bath & Beyond and Kohl’s said they were releasing MyPillow products amid a backlash from comments made by bedding company CEO Mike Lindell, who promotes prominent election conspiracy theories on social media.
Mr. Lindell said Kohl’s and Bed Bath & Beyond acted after people started pushing among them on social media, according to an interview posted on a pro-Trump website called Right Side Broadcasting Network on Monday. Mr. Lindell, who said he spoke to Bed Bath & Beyond minutes before the interview, claims without mentioning evidence that the criticism comes from false accounts.
Bed Bath & Beyond said on Tuesday that its decision is rooted in MyPillow’s actions. “We have rationalized our range to discontinue a number of underperforming items and brands,” a representative said in a statement. A Kohl’s spokesman said there has been a decline in demand for MyPillow, and that the chain has no plans to buy future stock after its supply is cleared.
Mr. Lindell, whose company is a major advertiser on Fox News, has become a prominent supporter of President Trump. He caught a wave of attention last week after a photo of partially visible notes he carried in the White House mentioned the Insurrection Act. MyPillow also offered a “FightforTrump” discount code on the day of the Capitol riots. On social media, groups like Sleeping Giants, created to stifle advertising dollars to Breitbart News, are asking sellers about their support for MyPillow products.
Mr. Lindell starred in the interview against Sleeping Giants.
“These guys do not understand, they are scared,” said Mr. Lindell said about Bed Bath & Beyond and Kohl’s. “They were good partners. In fact, I told them, come back whenever you want. ‘