Until recently in January, the Chinese billionaire and Alibaba founder Jack Ma was presumed missing by many. As he had not made a public appearance in nearly three months; however, in January he resurfaced in a video conference with rural teachers, promising to “meet each other again” after the pandemic. In the video, he is seen dressed in a navy pullover speaking directly to the camera.
He also didn’t appear in the final episode of Africa’s Business Heroes, a talent show of the Jack Ma Foundation in which 10 emerging African entrepreneurs are given a shared $1.5m (£1.09m) grant for pursuing their ideas. The Chinese Millionaire was replaced by Alibaba’s co-founder Lucy Peng. Reportedly, his picture was also removed from the judging webpage.
His Recent appearance in February
After he resurfaced the public’s eye on 20 January. His latest appearance was when he was spotted at the Sun Valley Golf Resort with a secluded 27-hole course on the Chinese island of Hainan.
Speculations on his Dissaperence
It all comes back to 24th October 2020 to the one speech he gave during a summit where he had attacked the communist nation’s banking system and called for reforms. He further stated that the Chinese banks work along the lines of a “pawnshop” mentality.
He made the speech a couple of weeks prior to the scheduled Initial Public Offering (IPO) of the Ant Group, backed by Mr Ma. There have been claims that the stock market listing was the world’s biggest IPO worth about $35bn (£25.5bn). However, just a couple of days before it was to happen China’s regulatory authorities suspended it, citing “major issues”.
This wasn’t it, subsequently, a series of actions were taken against Jack Ma’s companies followed by an antitrust investigation into Alibaba. In December, the firm’s $10billion (£7.3bn) buyback programme failed miserably to excite the market.
