Billionaire entrepreneur and founder of the Chinese-multinational firms Alibaba and Ant Co, Jack Ma appeared in a viral video on Wednesday. He resurfaced in this video months after he went missing in November 2020 after China destroyed at least Ant’s $35 billion IPO, and ordered a probe into Ma’s firm – Alibaba.
Ma addressed the teachers, rural educators and his followers across the world in a live stream that he hosts every year. While he did not speak about his recent run-ins with Beijing, Ma told that he has been spending his time since November 2020, in thinking. In the video which is viral on the web, Ma asserts, “Recently, my colleagues and I have been studying and thinking. We made a firmer resolution to devote ourselves to education philanthropy. Working hard for rural revitalization and common prosperity is the responsibility for our generation of businessmen.”
World has been a witness to many such events when prominent people went missing in China. Speculations on Ma’s whereabouts started making headlines since last year, as many billionaire entrepreneurs went absconding in China, in past few years. Ma’s firm Ant was also under direct scrutiny of the Chinese government who torpedoed $35 billion IPO of Ant and made fintech regulations complex, so entrepreneurs like Ma have a hard time doing business. The Xi Jinping government launched an overhaul of Ant, while a full-fledged probe was ordered into the earnings and activities of Alibaba, in 2020.
According to sources, Beijing is allegedly acting against the technology moguls of China as President Xi Jingping’s administration see them as a threat to the political and financial stability of the Communist party. The government has constantly sought to exert influence over the growing extent to which firms from ByteDance Ltd to Tencent Holdings Ltd amass direct commerce, data and media. Referring to Ma’s tech empire in China, researcher at Zhongguancun Internet Finance Institute, Dong Ximiao had said, “It’s clearly an escalation of coordinated efforts to rein in Jack Ma’s empire, which symbolized China’s new ‘too-big-to-fail’ entities. Chinese authorities want to see a smaller, less dominant and more compliant firm.”
Meanwhile, Jack Ma has been reportedly advised by the Chinese government to not to leave the country. Ma’s whereabouts weren’t clear even in the viral video and he did not reveal anything on his stand with Beijing, on steps that were taken against his establishments.
