Jack Ma, the billionaire co-founder and former chairman of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, has resurfaced from wherever it has been since the end of October 2020, when it halted public action amid a government crackdown on technology companies.
By CNN, Ma was present in a video released by Tianmu News, a subsidiary of the official state media apparatus of Zhenjiang province, where Alibaba is headquartered in Hangzhou. Mom appears via a video link to address the participants during an event hosted by the Philanthropic Foundation’s Rural Teacher Initiative; Tianmu wrote it was filmed on Wednesday local time. He also briefly appears in a second video visiting a school in Hangzhou, although the Wall Street Journal reported it was not clear when it was filmed.
In November 2020, Chinese regulators broke the hammer of Alibaba Group’s fintech subsidiary Ant Group, which was forced to suspend an initial public offering that was expected to raise $ 37 billion and set a world record in share sales. It immediately wiped out $ 68 billion of Alibaba’s market value. The Shanghai Stock Exchange (managed by a non-profit corporation) control by the Chinese government) told CNN in a statement at the time, the IPO was postponed due to ‘major issues’ which meant that Ant Group did not ‘comply with the listing conditions or disclosure requirements’, and the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs characterized it as a matter of ‘self-regulation’. The company later launched a “Correction order” of the People’s Bank of China. Alibaba now faces a antitrust investigation even if it tries appease regulators.
The month before the cancellation of the IPO, Ma criticized the regulators for having a “pawn shop mentality” and according to the Associated Press, which is in direct conflict with the Chinese government’s debt recovery efforts. His subsequent disappearance from the public eye has been widely interpreted as the CEO trying to lay down the heat he was gaining and with enough additional speculation that he may have been detained. Interpretations of the apparent repression of the Chinese government against Ma vary from the politically motivated smackdown of a billionaire who may challenge the Communist Party of China’s monopoly to an unexpected development in a years long push by Chinese financial and competition watchdogs to address widespread technology giants, as well as concerns about the financial risks posed by Ant’s massive IPO.
According to the Journal, Ma did not come down as if he were recording a hostage video, and sources told the newspaper that he had chosen to lower his own will:
Mr. Mom appeared relaxed and said he could not meet the teachers in person this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. He said his commitments to education will not change, adding that he hopes to see it in the future.
Another video embedded in the same Chinese media report, Mr. Mom pointed out what he said was a recent visit to a primary school in Tonglu County, near Hangzhou, where Ant and his subsidiary Alibaba are based. It did not specify when Mr. Ma, who was wearing a black cap and a padded winter jacket, visited the school.
…. Mr. Mom’s recent appearance may help allay some of the unverified rumors about why he has been out of the public eye for months, said Jeffrey Towson, a former professor at Beijing University’s Guanghua Management School. .. ‘It was an essential answer to the question of’ Where is Jack Ma? ‘, Said prof. Towson said. “Mom has such a high profile, his mere absence creates a lot of crazy ideas.”
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Furthermore, the newspaper reported that employees of Alibaba and Alipay Ma celebrated their appearance in internal boards.
According to the Journal, the People’s Bank of China has indicated that it does not disappoint Mom or its companies by announcing draft rules stating that non-bank payment companies have a large share of the payment market, either alone or in partnership with a competitor . “May be deemed to have market dominance and may be broken up or confronted by additional regulatory scrutiny.” Alipay, a subsidiary of Ant Group, processed approximately $ 17 billion in digital payments in the first half of 2020, or just over half of the market.