Jack Ma has been missing from the scene for at least two months, since the sinking of the mega IPO of Ant Group, the fintech of his Alibaba, at the beginning of November, fueling the mystery about his fate.
48 hours after the double listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai, an explicit report by President Xi Jinping, according to a reconstruction of the Wall Street Journal, led to the blocking of the largest operation in history of its kind, worth 37 billion dollars.
At the top of the Communist Party the harsh criticisms that Ma had pronounced at an event on October 24 in Shanghai, in which he said that "China does not have a systemic financial risk simply because it does not have a system, and this is the risk".
Boasting the record level of Ant's IPO, priced even far from New York, he had upped the ante by accusing Chinese banks of operating "with a pawnbroker mentality", when instead "good innovation is not afraid of rules, but of rules. antiquated ".
After numerous rumors, including the one reported by Bloomberg that the Beijing authorities had advised him not to leave the country, the Financial Times reported that Ma - whose Twitter account has not been updated since October 10 - had been replaced by a Alibaba executive for the recording of the final of 'Africa's Business Heroes', a television contest for budding entrepreneurs from the African continent with a check for 1.5 million dollars as a prize.
After all, financial sources point out to ANSA, with Alibaba at the center of antitrust investigations for alleged monopolistic practices (rumors also circulating of a possible stew for the group) and Ant Group subject to 'corrections' of the business by the authorities of regulation, starting with the Central Bank of China (PBOC), "getting out of the spotlight is the most prudent move that can be done".
The CCP has always viewed with suspicion the outsized influence of the great Chinese business leaders, even more so that built by a charismatic billionaire known both on the domestic front and in the West as a 'visionary' of technology.