Jack Ma, missing for months, emerges for first time since Alibaba, Ant crackdown

Jack Ma re-emerged online after months of speculation about his whereabouts.


Jack Ma, co-founder of Ant and Alibaba re-emerged after remaining out of sight for the past couple of months addressing scores of teachers in an online conference on Wednesday. The tech giant's absence had fueled speculation about his whereabouts. Ma participated in the annual event that the billionaire hosted to acknowledge the achievements of the rural educators.

Ma's appearance was initially reported by a local blog in which Ma said that he will spend more time on philanthropy. Although he did not mention about the recent happenings where Beijing is still investigating online finance titan Ant Group Co and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Ma had been 'missing' since early November when Chinese regulators, in a span of days, torpedoed Ant's $35 billion Initial Public Offering (IPO), tightened financial technology regulations following which it overhauled Ant and also gave green signal to an antitrust probe into Alibaba.

However, the reason behind Ma's disappearance is still unclear but it arose strong speculations as "Beijing has in the past quietly detained billionaires that have run afoul of the law, without immediate trial," reported by Bloomberg. 


 

The Brief. Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now.