Where Is Alibaba Founder Jack Ma? What the Saga of One of the World's Richest Men Reveals About China Under Xi Jinping

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Is anyone with money in China really dealing with their own money?

 

Where Is Alibaba Founder Jack Ma? What the Saga of One of the World's Richest Men Reveals About China Under Xi Jinping

 

According to an English transcript published by Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper, Ma, who is personally worth $48.2 billion, hedged his speech carefully. He described himself as “a somewhat retired man … sharing the non-professional views of a non-professional” and conceded that his ideas might be “immature, inaccurate or even laughable.” Politely, he threw in a couple of quotes from China’s strongman President Xi Jinping. But as he began inviting the audience—described by Reuters as “the great and the good of China’s financial, regulatory and political establishment”—to consider the need for reform of the country’s financial system, he crossed a line.

He obliquely chided Chinese regulators for stifling innovation, and said that Chinese banks suffered from a “pawnshop mentality” given that banks, like the informal lenders of yore, still relied on a system of “pledges and collateral.” This wasn’t all bad, Ma granted. “In the old days,” he pointed out, “a pawnshop was an advanced idea. Had it not been for innovations such as pledges and collateral, there would be no financial institutions today, and the Chinese economy would not have developed over the past 40 years to such a point now.”

But the listening cadres were infuriated. On Nov. 2, Ma was summoned by Chinese authorities for questioning. The next day, the $37 billion IPO of Alibaba’s fintech arm Ant Financial—touted as a record-breaking offering—was nixed by China’s securities watchdog despite it earlier having received a green light. By late December, regulators had instructed Ant Group to restructure its operations to adhere to new anti-monopoly rules, shaving billions off its valuation.

Then, late last week, Ma was replaced by another Alibaba executive for the televised final episode of a business talent contest he had been helming, with his picture scrubbed from the gallery of judges. Ma has now not been seen in public for at least two months. An Alibaba spokeswoman declined to comment on his whereabouts when contacted by TIME.

 

https://time.com/5926062/jack-ma/

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