Alibaba’s billionaire founder reappeared when he made a video call to 100 rural teachers three months after his last public appearance in October, increasing e-commerce shares in Hong Kong by more than 8% has.
A footage of the call was first posted on a news portal backed by the government of Zhejiang, the eastern province where Alibaba is headquartered, and the video was verified by an Alibaba spokesperson.
Speculation is rife about Ma’s whereabouts after the media reported in December that he had skipped the recording of a TV show he had created. Ma, known for his love of the spotlight, has seen his e-commerce empire Alibaba and fintech giant Ant Group increasingly in the crosshairs of the Chinese authorities over the past few months.
Mom last appeared in public at a conference where he packed China’s financial regulatory system in front of a chamber of dignitaries. According to his reports, his controversial remark prompted the Chinese regulator to abruptly discontinue Ant’s initial public offering, which was the largest public share sale ever.
Ant has since been working under corporate restructuring and regulatory compliance. Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce platform, also launched an investigation when market regulators launched an investigation into its alleged monopolistic practices.
Some believe that the recent crackdown on Jack Ma’s internet empire is a sign of Beijing’s growing discomfort with the country’s super-rich and private sector brokers.
“Today, Alibaba and its arch-rival, Tencent, control more personal data and are more involved in everyday life in China than Google, Facebook and other American technological titans in the United States. And just like their American counterparts, the Chinese giants are sometimes “Smashing smaller competitors and killing innovation,” Li Yuan wrote for the New York Times.
“You do not have to be a member of the Communist Party to see reasons to help them.”
In the 50-second clip, Mom is seen talking directly in the camera against decorative paintings depicting a typical Zhejiang water city. An art history book is displayed amidst a stack of books, next to a vase of fresh flowers and a ceramic statue of a sturdy, lying man who looks relaxed and contented.
Ma addressed the 100 teachers who received the Jack Ma Rural Teachers Award, which was compiled annually by the Jack Ma Foundation to identify outstanding rural teachers. It is unclear what Ma was talking about, but the video shows him visiting a rural boarding school in Zhejiang on January 10. The award ceremony was moved online this year due to the pandemic, Ma received the awards.
When Ma announced his retirement plan, he promised to return to his teaching roots and devote more time to philanthropy in education, although the founder still has significant dominance over Alibaba by retaining a seat in the powerful Alibaba Partnership. The legendary billionaire started his career as an English teacher in Hangzhou and on Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent, he calls himself the ‘ambassador for rural teachers’.