If Elon Musk had been out of sight for more than two months – the most unbearable, I’m sure we all wanted that to happen – investors would have sent a search group. Where is the leader who has led his company and shares to unprecedented heights?
His Chinese counterpart, Jack Ma, has now been out of sight for more than two months, his company being investigated by Chinese authorities. Nothing is known about his whereabouts. Here in Asia, we wonder where the Chinese boy entrepreneur went.
It is rumored and it is very likely that Ma was told not to leave China. He might keep his head under the parapets of his own free will. Whatever the situation, the situation is so serious and politically charged that the Beijing government is now censoring news in the Chinese media about Ma’s child antitrust investigation.
Ma, the co-founder and leader of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding (BABA), was last seen on October 31, when he took part in the gala extravaganza to kick off China’s spending festival, “Double 11”. “This was exactly a week after he gave a speech at a financial conference in Shanghai, in which he criticized China’s banking regulators and industry, calling the state-run banks because they have a ‘pawn mentality’.
Bad movement. Several bankers and highly influential regulators were present, who scattered in the bottled water of the Nongfu spring. Behind the scenes, we hear, Chinese President Xi Jinping was angry.
Xi had already met privately a few years ago with Ma and the founder of video game maker and app operator WeChat, Tencent Holdings (TCEHY), Pony Ma (who has no relationship), to remind the richest people in China and the most famous executives that their companies operate only at the request of the Communist Party. Xi, he shouldn’t have reminded them, is the only sheriff in town.
A few days after that speech in Shanghai, Ma and the two top executives at Ant Group, the company founded by Ma for processing payments for Alibaba websites, were transported for questions about their financial model, which extends consumer lending to buyers and provides a suite of third-party financial services. On November 3, Ant was blocked from listing its shares for the first time, just two days ahead of what was scheduled at $ 37 billion to be the largest initial public offering in world history.
According to him, President Xi personally canceled the IPO The Wall Street Journal. This sounds true, as the Shanghai Stock Exchange has already approved the offer before ordering it to be drawn at the last minute. Xi has “shown a declining tolerance” for large private companies that have capital and influence – and outspoken executives who challenge the iron rule of China’s so-called “emperor of life”.
Chinese regulators are now trying to restructure and eventually break up Ant Group, which runs the ubiquitous Alipay digital wallet app. They are also concerned about trading practices not only at Alibaba, but also at its rivals such as JD.com (JD) and Pinduoduo (PDD). Chinese e-commerce sites have a notorious “1 in 2” policy for many traders, forcing them to sell their goods through agreements on a single-platform website.
The ant is hit in the other tibia as well. U.S. President Donald Trump is making one of his latest actions in an executive order Tuesday to ban U.S. individuals and companies from trading with Alipay and seven other Chinese applications, including Tencent’s WeChat Pay and QQ Wallet. Trump said the apps are capable of capturing “large areas” of personal and sensitive information from users, making them a threat to national security.
A politician suddenly wakes me up the person who is not welcome. The Chinese government’s propaganda army has issued a directive to the news media to follow the official line of investigation into Alibaba and not to engage in any analysis of events without permission, Financial times reports today, quoting two people who read the order.
Several online blog posts discussing Ma’s whereabouts have been censored and removed, accordingly FT. Moreover, an online publication supported by Alibaba that published an editorial warning about the excessive punishment of Chinese technology companies was forced to cease operations for a month.
Ma did not appear for her own TV show in November. He personally heard presentations from entrepreneurs who wanted to become African business heroes, in the show of this name. But when the final episode aired, he was nowhere to be seen, his place being taken by an Alibaba executive. An Alibaba spokesman said “Jack Ma had to miss the final due to a scheduling conflict”.
Ma is not on the official list of people prevented from leaving China. But Bloomberg reports that he was told in December not to leave the country. A hashtag that forbade him to leave was washed by censors from the Chinese application Weibo (WB), similar to Twitter.
Musk may be the richest man in America and, indeed, in the world. But Ma, who loves the spotlight, is his direct equivalent in China, his $ 65.6 billion fortune making him the richest man there. Ma resigned as chief executive officer of Alibaba in September 2019, but his shadow over the company is largely looming, while he is a mythical figure among Chinese investors pursuing the next “unicorn” startup to turn into a billion-dollar company.
There is a danger for the Communist Party in taking Ma. While political rights do not exist in China, personal property and trade rights are well protected. Placing Alibaba in the party’s sights will frighten other successful entrepreneurs, most of whom are already trying to hide large chunks of their wealth overseas from the Communist Party.
However, the Communist Party will usually find a way to bring you down if they want to fall. Accusations of bribery and corruption are common accusations.
It seems that they have already temporarily received their wish with Mr. Ma. I’d bet he kept quiet after he opened his mouth in Shanghai, made him have trouble in Shanghai. But when and where will it come to the surface ?!
You receive an email alert every time I write a real money article. Click “+ Watch” next to the hotline of this article.