Chinese billionaire Jack Ma made his first public appearance since October. He met 100 rural teachers in China via a live video meeting.
He was suspected to be missing following Beijing’s aggressive crackdown on Alibaba Group.
“#JUSTIN: #JackMa not disappear, here we go: Ma just had a video conference with 100 village teachers on Wednesday morning, saying: after #COVID19, we’ll meet each other again,” tweeted Qingqing Chen, Chief Reporter of Global Times News, a China state-affiliated media. Ma had mysteriously disappeared from the public eye after Beijing’s aggressive crackdown on his business empire.
She further added that Jack Ma met with 100 rural teachers in the country through video conferencing.
“Ma, who used to be an English teacher and founder of #Alibaba, also gives wishes to village teachers via a video on Wednesday,” tweeted Qingqing Chen. China state-affiliated media also shared a video in which the billionaire can be seen addressing the gathering.
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Speculations were rife that one of China’s most vocal and outspoken business tycoons, Alibaba founder Jack Ma has been vanished from the public eye.
Jack Ma was set to appear as a judge in the final episode of his own talent show, ‘Africa’s Business Heroes’, but mysteriously did not turn up for it. His photographs were also reportedly removed from the show’s website, The Telegraph, UK reported. He was replaced on the show by another Alibaba executive.
Jack Ma’s disappearance comes at a time when his companies – Alibaba and Ant Group – are under the scanner in China and are facing an antitrust probe for alleged monopolistic practices.
Hitting out at Chinese regulators, he had gone on to publicly criticize Chinese regulators and called the country’s banks “pawnshops”. “Mortgages and guarantees are for a pawnshop, but if we go to extremes in relying solely on collateral assets, certain enterprises will pledge all of their assets, and the pressure [for them] is enormous,” Ma had said in October last year.
Following his October criticism, Beijing came down heavily on Ma and suspended the $37billion initial public offering (IPO) of Ant Group as per direct orders of President Xi, as per the Wall Street Journal. According to Bloomberg, Ma was also advised to remain in China before launching an anti-monopoly investigation into his Alibaba Group Holding on Christmas Eve.
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