Chinese billionaire Jack Ma has not been seen for more than two months after publicly attacking Beijing’s finance 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 regulation system to stifle innovation, calling for reform of what he called a “club for the elderly,” he said. point out The Telegraph.
Within days, Chinese regulators halted the $ 37 billion stock debut of Alibaba’s financial subsidiary, Ant Group, and launched an antitrust investigation into the e-commerce giant Ma, known as the ” Amazon of 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 swirl about his location when he was unable to show himself as a judge in the finale of a “Apprentice” -style TV show he created, “Africa’s Business Heroes,” he noted. Financial Times (FT) of the United Kingdom.
One of his last tweets had been about the show, with Ma sprouting from the finalists, “I can’t wait to meet them!”
In addition to being replaced by the final, Ma’s photo was removed from the judge’s website and left out of a promotional video, the FT said of the final filmed in November, but which has not yet been released. issue in full.
An Alibaba spokesman blamed a “time conflict” for not missing the final of his own program, on which he had tweeted excitedly, the FT said.
“We have nothing to add further,” a spokesman told Business Insider.
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 been a hit of $ 12 billion in the past two months when regulators have affiliated their businesses and is now the fourth richest person in China, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.