Billionaire Ant Group co-founder Jack Ma missed a recent taping of an African TV program he created, sparking speculation about his whereabouts and the outcome of a Chinese investigation into his internet empire.
Ma hasn’t been seen in public since Chinese regulators torpedoed Ant’s $US35 billion IPO. Within days, Chinese fintech regulations were tightened and an antitrust probe was launched into Alibaba Group Holding.
Jack Ma has fallen out with China’s authorities.Credit:AP
The Financial Times on Friday reported that the showrunners of Africa’s Business Heroes replaced him as a judge in a November telecast and removed his photo from the show’s website. The incident came around the same time Ma delivered his now-infamous rebuke of the “pawnshop” mentalities of government overseers.
The flamboyant Ma – long a fixture on the international conference circuit – all but vanished from public view thereafter. As of early December, the man most closely identified with the meteoric rise of China Inc was told by the government to stay in the country, a person familiar with the matter has said.
