The Chinese tech billionaire behind the Asian version of Amazon has reportedly not been seen in public for more than two months after being maligned against President Xi Jinping.
Jack Ma, one of China’s most successful and outspoken subjects, criticized a fire in Shanghai’s financial pawn shops and financial banks in Shanghai in October.
He called for the reform of a system that ‘suffocates business’ and compares global banking regulations to a’ seniors’ club ‘.
The speech angered the Chinese government, which saw Ma’s criticism as an attack on the Communist Party’s authority, and led to his extraordinary crackdown on Ma’s business activities.
In November, officials in Beijing “dressed up” Ma and raised the conspicuous initial public offering of his Ant group to $ 37 billion at the direct behest of President Xi, reports the Wall Street Journal.
They then advised Mom to stay in China before launching an antimonopoly investigation into Mom’s Alibaba Group Holding on Christmas Eve, according to Bloomberg. Beijing has also ordered that Ma’s financial technology company Ant Group reduce its operations.
Mom then mysteriously disappears from his TV show Africa’s Business Heroes of Dragons’ just before the November final, while his photo is being scrubbed on the judging panel’s website.
An Alibaba spokesman told the Financial Times that Ma could no longer be part of the judging panel due to the schedule conflict.
Jack Ma, one of China’s most successful entrepreneurs, criticized the country’s financial regulators and state-owned banks in Shanghai in late October. It is suspected that Ma personally maligned President Xi Jinping
His calls for reform of a system, which he says are choking on innovation, are believed to have angered government leaders who saw the speech as an attack on the Communist Party.
But a few weeks before the final, Ma tweeted that he “could not wait” to meet the participants. There has since been no activity on the father-in-law of the father of three, one who regularly saw a few tweets a day.
Beijing has a history of ruthless action against internal critics and in March a magnate disappeared after calling President Xi a ‘clown’ for dealing with the coronavirus crisis.
Friends of Ren Zhiqiang said they could not contact him and six months later he was sentenced to 18 years in prison after “voluntarily and honestly” admitting various corruption crimes.
Xian Jianhua, a billionaire financier, was snatched from a hotel in Hong Kong in 2017 and taken to the mainland.
He is said to be under house arrest more than three years later, without being officially found.
The anti-monopoly investigation dropped Alibaba’s shares by a quarter since their peak shortly after the speech in October, wiping more than $ 10 billion from Ma’s paper fortune.
This put Ma in third place on the list of China’s richest people, behind Colind Huang, CEO of Pinduoduo, and Pony Ma Huateng of Tencent Holdings.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Mom now has an estimated net worth of $ 63.1 billion.
In the aftermath of the speech, Ma was “undressed” by officials in Beijing and the $ 37 billion provisional public offering (IPO) of his company Ant Group was reportedly personally suspended, according to the Wall Street Journal. , sings a song during an event to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Alibaba in Hangzhou)
Xi Jinping speaks at a conference of European leaders in Beijing on Wednesday
Shares of Nasdaq-listed Pinduoduo in New York rose 7.77 percent on Wednesday, raising market capitalization to nearly $ 220 billion.
It was the second day in a row that the five-year-old business passed the $ 200 billion mark.
Huang’s prosperity in China is now just behind Zhong Shanshan, chairman of bottled water giant Nongfu Spring, which recently completed a record $ 87 billion offering in Hong Kong in September.
The fate of the country’s largest e-commerce, delivery and social media platforms has been in an awkward position since Beijing drafted a document to suppress the ‘platform economy’ in early November.
Despite being one of China’s most successful businessmen, Mr. Mom increasingly clashed with the regime over its preferences for more of an open and market-driven economy. There is so far no suggestion that he was harmed.
Until recently, he was a leading light of China’s unique approach to wealth generation by unleashing market forces within a strictly controlled communist framework.
Alibaba founder Jack Ma speaks at Alibaba’s 20th birthday party at Hangzhou Olympic Center Stadium on September 10, 2019
Mom, who is married to Cathy Zhang (55), has completely disappeared from the public eye – a sudden change all the more remarkable given her previously large public profile
The English teacher-turned-business magnate commanded an almost rock star status and even played an invincible kung fu master in a 2017 star-studded film.
And even as tensions between the US and China deepen, Mr. Mom expands an olive branch by donating 2,000 fans to New York with his right hand man Joe Tsai, who asked for a ‘thank you’ from Donald Trump.
But the stock market launch of Ma’s payment company Ant was surprised by regulators in what many saw as retaliation for its explosive speech in Shanghai in October.
Since then, regulators have met with Ant executives and ordered him to improve his corporate governance, his compliance with regulations and his habit of using their size to push competitors out of the market.
In the process, Mr. Mom, who is married to Cathy Zhang (55), disappears completely from the public eye – a sudden change all the more remarkable given his previously large public profile.