By Elishya Perera
SHANGHAI (CU)_Chinese billionaire Jack Ma is suspected to be missing after reports surfaced that the tech mogul had not made a public appearance in more than two months.
The Alibaba founder even failed to appear in the finale of his own talent show Africa’s Business Heroes, which provides an opportunity for aspiring African entrepreneurs to compete for a US$1.5 million grant. Although Ma was expected to be a part of the judging panel for the finale, he was replaced by an Alibaba executive, owing to “a schedule conflict”, a spokesperson for the multinational tech company noted.
The famously outspoke entrepreneur, known for his confident swagger, took to a conference stage in Shanghai in October last year, and unveiled a 20-minute roasting of the communist regime in China, which he claimed would suffocate the country’s innovations.
He even called out “pawn shop” Chinese lenders and regulators who don’t understand the internet, and the “old men” of the global banking community.
Little over a week later, the authorities in Beijing took down the Ant public offering which had previously received the green light from China’s securities watchdog, and the communist regime launched a regulatory crackdown into the country’s largest digital payment platform.
Although the regulators have issued claims of anti-competitive practices and changes in financial technology regulatory environment against the Ant Group, however, experts say the move was an attempt to curtail the country’s tech empires, which are perceived as a threat to the political and financial stability of President Xi Jinping.
US veteran investor Mark Mobius said the Chinese government stepped in, in order to regulate these companies, “so that they don’t … get too big”, while Rana Mitter, a professor specializing in Chinese politics at Oxford University, also noted that “The [Communist] Party is trying to make it clear that Ma is not bigger than the party”.
The unexpected suspension of the world’s largest IPO on November 3 left financiers from New York to Shanghai stunned, and regulators have issued a 22 pages long anti-monopoly guidelines against the Ant Group, and has demanded the company to restructure its operations.
Ma’s last tweet, on a climate action initiative in collaboration with The Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, was on October 10.
