BEIJING: Chinese entrepreneur Jack Ma has resurfaced after months out of public view that fueled intense speculation that the billionaire was grappling with escalating scrutiny over his internet empire.
China’s most recognisable entrepreneur addressed teachers via livestream on Wednesday during an annual event he hosts to recognize rural educators.
In a video of the event circulated online, Ma talked about how he will spend more time on philanthropy. He did not mention his recent run-ins with Beijing during his address, which was first reported in a local blog.
Alibaba’s shares gained more than 4% in Hong Kong. While it is still unclear where Jack Ma is, his emergence in a public forum may help quell persistent rumours about his fate while Beijing pursues investigations into online finance titan Ant Group and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
The executive had kept out of public view since early November, when Chinese regulators torpedoed Ant’s $35 billion IPO, tightened fintech regulations, ordered an overhaul of Ant and launched a separate antitrust probe into Alibaba all in a span of days.
“Recently, my colleagues and I have been studying and thinking. We made a firmer resolution to devote ourselves to education philanthropy,” Ma said in the video. “Working hard for rural revitalisation and common prosperity is the responsibility for our generation of businessmen.”
The assault on Ma’s trillion-dollar corporate empire encapsulates a broader campaign to rein in a generation of Chinese tech giants that Beijing now views as wielding too much control over the world’s second largest economy.
Alibaba is China’s most famous tech company but it faces a host of challenges that risk fundamentally changing it forever. Chinese authorities are investigating the company on antitrust grounds, while also pushing its sprawling financial affiliate, Ant Group, to overhaul its business.
