Jack Ma, the Billionaire Founder of Alibaba, Resurfaces in Thailand


Jack Ma, the enigmatic billionaire founder of global e-commerce giant Alibaba, has reportedly been spotted in Bangkok, Thailand.

Just hours before Ant Group, the fintech affiliate of Alibaba, announced that Ma would give up control of the company, the Jay Fai restaurant in Bangkok shared a picture of the business magnate on their Instagram account.

The caption accompanying the post read: “Incredibly humble, we are honored to welcome you and your family to Jay Fai’s.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CnEbnVoPOg3

Hours before The Wall Street Journal first reported that Jack Ma was preparing to give up control of Ant Group, the company he founded, the post was published showing Ma at a restaurant with Soopakij Chearavanont, the chair of the Charoen Pokphand Group.

It was also reported that Ma had been pictured at a Muay Thai fight on Thursday, posing in a fighting stance for a photograph with the Thai boxing champion Sombat “Buakaw” Banchamek.

On Saturday, a spokesperson for Ant Group, which owns the world’s largest mobile-payment platform, Alipay, said they were streamlining voting rights to prevent any one shareholder from having a controlling vote.

Ant Group, formerly known as Ant Financial, announced on Saturday that Jack Ma has resigned from the company’s board of directors. According to a statement, the move is intended to “further enhance the stability of [the] corporate structure and sustainability of [the] long-term development.”

Ma, formerly China’s richest man, has been absent from public view since October 2020 when he gave a speech criticizing the country’s financial-regulation system. Following Beijing’s intervention, the company abandoned plans to list on the stock market. Since then, Ma’s net worth has fallen by more than $25 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Though Ma does not hold an executive role or sit on the board, he maintained influence through a separate entity he controlled. The announced changes are part of a sweeping overhaul imposed by Chinese authorities.

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