Jack Ma, co-founder of eCommerce giant Alibaba has been a vocal personality, expressing his thoughts, political views, ideologies, ideas along with his life story of rags to riches. He has been attending talk shows and discussions all over the globe. His speeches and ponderings never go unnoticed anywhere, especially on the internet where every other video that surfaces out of a conference or discussion goes almost viral. His inspiring career story, his personal experiences and his lifestyle interests are a topic of attention. His rousing videos at South China Morning Post or World Economic Forum have garnered millions of views. There is little to no wonder why he carries an influential aura around him. However, this lucrative personality of his has started becoming a nuisance for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) which has started regulating certain laws in order to trap Ma off his misery. Here is how Jack Ma fell out of proportions with the Chinese government.
Once China’s richest man, Jack Ma has been a strong proponent of an open and free-market economy. He has developed a global presence through Alibaba Group along with his views and connections. In 2017, Ma was ranked second in the annual "World's 50 Greatest Leaders" list by Fortune. In September 2018, he announced that he would retire from Alibaba and pursue educational work, philanthropy, and environmental causes; the following year, Daniel Zhang succeeded him as executive chairman.
However, at the Bund Summit that where he was addressing a crowd, he told the audience that he was torn about speaking, but felt this was a "most critical" moment in the development of finance. He then went on to criticise and roast the government regulation by calling them “anachronistic”. He also said that these regulations would suffocate innovation in China. It was supposed to be a regular address from the famous man, but as it turns out, this did not settle well with the Chinese government.
China's government since launched a coordinated regulatory crackdown, which in November scuttled the Ant public offering and, together with tough new antitrust rules, triggered about a $140 billion, or 17%, decline in the market value of Ma's Alibaba.
It’s not only Jack Ma who has been caught in the ruse of the CCP, Tencent Holdings Ltd.'s chairman, "Pony" Ma Huateng, and other tycoons are also being suspected after amassing hundreds of millions of users and gaining influence over almost every aspect of daily life in China.
Chinese government’s stance over this issue has been heard clear and loud by all the multi-millionaires and billionaires. No-one stands or should even try to stand above the Chinese politburo.
