Billionaire co-founder Jack Ma and former chairman According to Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, she has re-emerged from where she has been since the end of October 2020, when she called off public demonstrations amid a government raid on tech firms.
Per cnn, Ma was present in a video released by Tianmu News, a subsidiary of the official state media apparatus of Xinjiang province, where Alibaba is based in Hangzhou. Ma showed via video link to address attendees at an event thrown by his philanthropic foundation’s Rural Teachers Initiative; Tianmu wrote that it was shot on Wednesday at local time. He briefly appeared in a second video while visiting a school near Hangzhou, though The Wall Street Journal reported It was not clear when it was filmed.
In November 2020, Chinese regulators landed the hammer on Alibaba Group’s fintech affiliate Ant Group, forcing it to halt the initial public offering, which was expected to raise $ 37 billion and set a world record. Share sales. This immediately wiped out about $ 68 billion of Alibaba’s market value. Shanghai Stock Exchange (which is run by a non-profit medium control By the Chinese government) Told CNN In a statement at the time, the IPO was postponed due to “major issues” which meant the Ant Group “did not meet the listing conditions or disclosure requirements” and the Chinese Foreign Ministry It is depicted as “self-regulation”. A later company “Correction order” From the People’s Bank of China. Alibaba is now facing a Antitrust check As it tries to Appealing regulator.
A month before the IPO was canceled, Ma criticized regulators as having a “ponsopt mentality” and called for loosening restrictions on borrowing. The Associated Press, Is in direct contrast to the Chinese government’s efforts to rein in debt. His subsequent disappearance was widely interpreted from public view as the CEO tried to lay low heat and was detained with some additional speculation of what he had accomplished. From the explanation of the apparent crackdown of the Chinese government on Ma Politically motivated Smackdown of billionaire who challenged China’s monopoly is not an unexpected-unexpected development on power Year round push Chinese financial and competition watchdog to focus on the legendary tech giants, as well as concern about the financial risks posed by Ant’s massive IPO.
According to the Journal, Ma had not stopped, though he was recording a hostage video, and sources reported that the paper he had chosen to curtail his own will:
Mr. Ma appeared relaxed and said that he was unable to meet the teachers in person this year due to an epidemic of coronavirus virus. He said that his commitment to education will not change and he said he hopes to see it in the future.
Another video, embedded in the same Chinese media report, showed Mr Ma saying that he had recently visited an elementary school in Tonglu County near Hangzhou, where Ant and his associates are based in Alibaba. It is not specified when Mr. Ma was shown wearing a black hat and a padded winter jacket, he visited the school.
…. may help put to rest some unbroken rumors about Mr. Ma’s recent appearance, as he has been out of the public eye for months, said Jeffrey Towson, a former professor at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management … it’s where Jack Ma? Was a necessary response to the question of ‘. “Ma has such a high profile, a lot of crazy ideas are produced in her absence.”
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Additionally, the paper reported that employees of Alibaba and Alipay celebrated Ma’s reappearance on internal boards.
According to the Journal, People’s Bank of China indicated that it was not allowing Ma or their companies to make payments by issuing draft regulations that say non-banking payment companies with a large share of the payment market, alone or Are in concert with a contestant. , “Can be understood as being market dominance and facing additional regulatory scrutiny.” Alipay, an Ant Group subsidiary, processed about $ 17 trillion in digital payments, or half of the market, in the first half of 2020.
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