What Really Happened To Jack Ma? - Rajat Meshram

Start with this: We know more about the whereabouts and the condition of Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Putin’s prize prisoner than we do about Jack Ma.  

Last Fall Jack Ma was rich and famous, and we knew all about him, and followed his every move. He was in fact the richest man in China, and the most famous living Chinese person (according to polls). He was poised to crown his career with a triumphant public offering for his company, The Ant Group, the largest Fintech company in the world. The markets loved him. His high-tech business empire – which included Alibaba, the “Amazon of China” – was valued at well over $1 Trillion. He was an entrepreneur, an innovator, and a charismatic spokesman for Success in New China. But in Ma’s charisma, there was a dimension beyond. His showmanship skills were extraordinary. Alibaba’s stadium-sized company celebrations were choreographed into extravaganzas the equal of any Super Bowl halftime show, and Ma himself was always the.

Then he disappeared. 

Ma last took the public stage on October 24 of last year, in Shanghai. He gave a speech – The Speech, as it will be known – in which he was bluntly critical of the Chinese financial industry establishment. Days later, the authorities responded. They killed the Ant IPO, and summoned Ma to Beijing for “regulatory interviews.” And the curtain came down. 

Jack Ma hasn’t been seen since – if by “seen” we mean being actually observed, and verifiably photographed, in public, and at liberty. Instead, through a credulous press, we have been treated to a series of bizarre “sightings.”