MA fall dates back to the end of 2020, when he gave a controversial speech, which attacked Beijing’s strategy to minimize risks in the financial system and traditional banks
Jack Ma, founder of the e-commerce Giant Alibaba, reappeared on Monday at an official event promoted by Chinese President Xi Jinping after being kept away from the spotlight since 2020, following the friction with the authorities.
A video released by the CCTV state television channel shows the applauding, before the entry of Xi and other Communist Party leaders of China (CCP), at the beginning of an unusual symposium with private sector executives, including companies like Tencent, Byd, Huawei and DeepSeek.
The fall of MA dates back to the end of 2020, when he gave a controversial speech, which attacked Beijing’s strategy to minimize risks in the financial system and traditional banks, which, according to him, were managed as “pledge houses.”
Days later, the Chinese regulators forced the suspension of the subsidiary ‘fintech’ scholarship of Alibaba, Ant Group, carrier of the popular Payment Platform Alipay.
The deal, which derailed only 36 hours before the expected date for its realization, should have been the biggest entry into history in history, allowing the company to raise $ 34.5 billion (almost 33 billion euros).
Until then, Ma was the richest man in China – is now the eighth with a fortune of $ 27.2 billion (almost 26 billion euros), 44% less than in 2021. Great visible face of the development of the private sector in the Asian country, as it was also considered practically untouchable.
After the Beijing disputes, Ma remained discreet, to the point that the authorities would have forbidden him to leave the country or have been detained.
The change, according to the experts, arrived in early 2023, when Ant Group met one of Beijing’s main demands: dissolve MA’s vote power, which many analysts interpreted as the end of a regulatory campaign that had resulted in fines Anti -monopoly against Alibaba and other prominent companies such as Tencent or Didi, the “Chinese Uber”.
In the words of consulting firm Trivium China: “The campaign started with Jack Ma and ends with Jack Ma”.
In March of the same year, the businessman reappeared in China after news that he had moved abroad, and the experts anticipated that Beijing hoped his return to encourage government efforts to regain private sector confidence.
