'Jack Ma spends his time painting,' claims Alibaba exec amid Xi Jinping govt's clampdown

Amid the prolonged suspense over Chinese billionaire Jack Ma's whereabouts, Alibaba's executive vice-chairman Joe Tsai has made a massive revelation. In an interview with CNBC's Squawk Box, Joe Tsai said he speaks with Jack Ma every day while assuring that the Alibaba founder is doing well in terms of his philanthropy and has taken up painting as a hobby to spend his time while he is laying low.

However, what is difficult to digest, is a man known to be the richest in China until less than a year back has suddenly gone missing from the public eye, raising a serious question among many about the risk of airing grouse against the communist regime that controls China in entirety.

Involved in Philanthropy and Painting, but where is Jack Ma?

On being questioned about Jack Ma laying low and being out of the public eye is a consequence of speaking against the Communist Government, Tsai seemed to weigh his response carefully so as not to cause any further turbulence for his company or for himself in the future. He said that Jack Ma has been out of business for the last two years since the time he stepped down as CEO of Alibaba and handed over the reins to Daniel Zhang, while he contended that Jack Ma is now just a normal individual and the idea that he holds an enormous amount of power is inappropriate.

For a person who was the founder of Alibaba, a Chinese equivalent of E-commerce and Tech giant Amazon, calling him 'just a normal individual' seems outlandish. 

During the course of the interview, Joe Tsai acknowledged that Jack Ma has built a tremendous company of such a massive scale and has contributed greatly to society, as he went on to assert that Jack Ma is doing exactly what he wants to do i.e. focussing on his hobbies and philanthropy.

To a question whether Jack Ma is laying low willingly, Tsai said Jack Ma isn't laying low in his philanthropy or keeping in touch with his friends. He is just living a normal life after business, said Tsai in an attempt to drive his point home.

Chinese Communist regime after Jack Ma

Ant Group, formerly known as Ant Financial and Alipay, is an affiliate company of the Alibaba Group, founded by Jack Ma. The company was set to raise the world's biggest ever IPO in history in 2020, which could have been a reality if only Jack Ma refrained from making negative comments about Chinese financial regulators.

Moreover, Chinese regulators on April 10 imposed a record fine of $2.8 billion on Alibaba for what they claimed as Alibaba had abused its dominant market position. The Chinese regulators claimed that an anti-monopoly investigation concluded that the company, which is owned by Jack Ma, used its platform rules and technical methods like data and algorithms to maintain and strengthen its own market power and obtain an improper competitive advantage.

 Within in span of eight to nine months, the valuation of Jack Ma's companies has declined by nearly 50% falls. The Xi Jinping led Chinese regime has also compelled Jack Ma to sell the South China Morning Post (SCMP) which was a Hong Kong-based daily, owing to its growing influence over public opinion in China. 

There have been various other measures taken by the Chinese Government to curb his prominence in the country, all for his criticisms of the Xi Jinping-led regime, which raises many existential questions about China.