Chinese billionaire Jack Ma has not been seen for more than two months after publicly attacking Beijing officials – even skipping his own reality show, according to reports.
The founder of Alibaba was set on fire in October for a speech in which he attacked China’s financial regulatory system for stifling innovation, calling for reform of what he called an “old people’s club,” The Telegraph noted.
Within days, Chinese regulators halted the $ 37 billion start-up of Alibaba’s financial subsidiary, Ant Group, and launched an antitrust investigation into Ma’s e-commerce giant known as “Amazon.” China “.
Ma has not been seen in public since his controversial speech, The Telegraph said, and his latest tweet was even earlier in October.
Speculation began to rage about his place, when he failed to appear as a judge in the final of an “Apprentice” -style TV show he created, “Africa’s Business Heroes,” the Financial Times noted. ) From Great Britain.
One of his last tweets was about the show, with Ma springing from the finalists, “I can’t wait to meet them!”
In addition to being replaced for the final, Ma’s photo was removed from the judge’s website and left out of a promotional video, FT said of the final, which was filmed in November but was still fully aired.
An Alibaba spokesman blamed a “scheduling conflict” for missing the final of his own show, which he enthusiastically posted on Twitter, FT said.
“We have nothing to add beyond that,” a spokesman for Business Insider said.
Prior to the scandal, Ma had been the richest man in China and was worth more than $ 60 billion, Business Insider said.
Its net worth has since hit $ 12 billion in the past two months as regulators have consolidated their business, and it is now the fourth richest person in China, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. .