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There is increasing speculation about where one of the world’s richest people, Jack Ma, may have gone. Today, he is the founder of Alibaba, one of China’s best-known online entrepreneurs, and has not appeared in public for more than two months.
Yahoo Finance reported on the speculation about her disappearance, who also wrote that Ma also missed the final of the Africa’s Business Heroes show, Africa’s Business Heroes contest, which she was supposed to swear in November. He was replaced by a member of Alibaba’s board of directors, and Ma’s photo was also removed from the competitor’s website. An Alibaba spokesperson explained this to a question in the Financial Times saying that Ma could not include filming among his tasks. However, there are those who have not been convinced by this answer, as Ma himself has previously published that he is looking forward to meeting the finalists in November.
Today, his eventual disappearance has caused a more serious stir because his group of companies has recently been spectacularly landed by the Chinese authorities. We also wrote in detail about how in early November, a few days before the scheduled date, the Shanghai Stock Exchange oversaw the ban on a fintech company called Ant Group today, even though it was scheduled to be the world’s largest share issue.
The decision at the time also seriously surprised analysts working on the Chinese economy, with some suggesting that Beijing might have avoided the IPO because Ma had not been very critical of China’s financial regulatory system and authorities long before. The ANT Group wanted to achieve even more serious changes in the financial services field, in addition to the already widespread use of mobile payments throughout the country, it also wanted to make it possible to contract smaller loans.
Analysts at the time wrote that the decision was not necessarily political in nature, but may have raised sincere concerns with authorities that the huge growth new player could pose a serious challenge to the stability of China’s financial system.
Then, in December, the Chinese authorities launched an antitrust investigation on Alibaba and also told the company empire that it would go back to its roots, that is, forget about loans. Today, he didn’t even respond to those developments, and his latest Twitter post was born in October.
An American analyst, Duncan Clark, who wrote a book on the history of Alibaba, told CNN that although Ma had been in the public eye for some time, the current situation was still surprising. He no longer holds a position on Alibaba’s board of directors, resigned in 2019, but remains the largest individual shareholder and still has an important role in Ant Group.
In addition, he has appeared occasionally in the Chinese press, where he has mainly spoken about his charitable activities, which he has been dealing with a lot since leaving Alibaba. As CNN writes, it is unclear whether Ma has attended any business or professional events since he criticized the operation of China’s financial watchdog agencies.
Alibaba management and ANT have responded to regulatory criticism anyway, and both corporate empires have stated that they will actively cooperate with the authorities.
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