Jack Ma Makes His First Public Appearance in Months

There were some reports that Jack Ma, the man behind China’s e-commerce behemoth Alibaba had gone missing because he was not seen in public for at least two months. Wednesday Jack Ma just made his first public appearance in months as his tech empire continues to face scrutiny from Chinese regulators. He was last seen in public, Oct. 24, when he gave a speech in Shanghai at the Bund Summit, a gathering billed as a “an open, pragmatic and internationally influential financial high-end communication platform.”

He obliquely chided Chinese regulators for stifling innovation, and said that Chinese banks suffered from a “pawnshop mentality” given that banks, like the informal lenders of yore, still relied on a system of “pledges and collateral.” This wasn’t all bad, Ma granted. “In the old days,” he pointed out, “a pawnshop was an advanced idea. Had it not been for innovations such as pledges and collateral, there would be no financial institutions today, and the Chinese economy would not have developed over the past 40 years to such a point now.”

But the listening cadres were infuriated. On Nov. 2, Ma was summoned by Chinese authorities for questioning. The next day, the $37 billion IPO of Alibaba’s fintech arm Ant Financial—touted as a record-breaking offering—was nixed by China’s securities watchdog despite it earlier having received a green light. By late December, regulators had instructed Ant Group to restructure its operations to adhere to new anti-monopoly rules, shaving billions off its valuation.

The billionaire co-founder of Alibaba resurfaced Wednesday, in a video published by Chinese state media, after having laid low for at least two months. He was shown speaking to teachers in rural China as part of a philanthropic event. The video was published online by Tianmu News, a subsidiary of the Zhejiang government’s official newspaper. Zhejiang province is home to Hangzhou, the city where Alibaba is based.

Ma had not made a public appearance or social media post since late October, just over a week before Alibaba’s financial affiliate Ant Group was scheduled to list on the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges. The IPO was blocked at the last minute by Chinese regulators, and his companies have since been targeted as part of an escalating crackdown on tech by Beijing.

Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares surged more than 9% on Wednesday after the video was published. The gains put the stock on pace for its best day since last July, helping to erase some of the losses that have piled up since Ant Group’s IPO was pulled. The stock also powered a broader rally in Chinese tech stocks that trade in Hong Kong.

Reached for comment Wednesday, Alibaba referred to a statement released by the Jack Ma Foundation, his philanthropic organization. The foundation said that Ma participated in an online award ceremony Wednesday for teachers called the Rural Teacher Initiative, which it created.

Ma, a former English teacher, has made education a priority for his foundation, which he has devoted more time to since retiring from Alibaba in 2019. In the video, which Tianmu News said was filmed Wednesday morning, Ma is shown telling teachers that the traditional in-person celebration for the teaching initiative had been canceled because of Covid-19.“We’ll meet again after the epidemic is over,” Ma said in the video.

It also showed footage of Ma that it said was taken during a visit to an elementary school in Hangzhou earlier this month. Ma’s whereabouts have been the subject of intense speculation in recent weeks. As Ant Group was preparing for the world’s largest initial public offering last fall, Ma accused authorities of stifling innovation and blasted the country’s banks for having a “pawn shop” mentality. Within days, regulators summoned Ma and Ant executives to a meeting and then shelved the IPO altogether.

The event in Shanghai where Ma made those remarks was the last time he was seen in public before Wednesday — a notable absence for a man who typically has no issue with the spotlight. Alibaba is China’s most famous tech company but it faces a host of challenges that risk fundamentally changing it forever. Chinese authorities are investigating the company on antitrust grounds, while also pushing its sprawling financial affiliate, Ant Group, to overhaul its business.