Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma has been off the grid for about three months now. Many have speculated as to where he could have been and what happened to him. Most of this speculation was spurred by remarks he made against the Chinese financial system.
He made these remarks in front of high ranking Chinese officials to boot.
Days after this address the Chinese authorities stopped Ant Group’s US$35 Billion IPO on the Shangai Stock Exchange.
Now, it’s not exactly uncommon for the mega-rich to stay out of the public eye from time to time. In Ma’s case, he had stepped back from the day to day running of Alibaba in 2019. However, the circumstances around his sudden exit from public activities were what raised concerns.
Well, it appears that those questions can be put to bed for now as there was a clip of the billionaire talking to a hundred rural teachers via video call. The clip is only 50 seconds long and no one is sure where he was when on the call. But Techcrunch reports that the video briefly shows him visiting boarding school in Zhejiang on the 10th of January. The authenticity of the video was confirmed by Ant Group according to a report by Aljazeera.
Jack Ma making an appearance may help quell the persistent rumours about his whereabouts while the Chinese Authorities investigate his companies. His reappearance has also helped Alibaba’s share price, as it jumped by 11% in Hong Kong.
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