Jack Ma Resurfaces at Alibaba HQ After Long Disappearance
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The founder, who has stayed out of the public eye since criticizing Beijing’s financial regulators in October, showed his face at the company’s annual Ali Day event.
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On Monday, Alibaba founder Jack Ma made his first public appearance since January, and second since October, at a company celebration at its Hangzhou campus, Reuters reported. The billionaire founder has stayed largely out of the public eye since the fall, when he criticized Chinese financial regulators in a speech. In the aftermath of the talk, his other company, Ant Group, pulled out of its IPO, which would have started trading at a record market cap of $37 billion. The Monday sighting took place during the online retailer’s annual Ali Day at which a staff member photographed the former chairman in a shuttle bus. In the picture, according to Reuters, Ma was smiling, wearing a pair of white pants, a blue T-shirt, and cloth shoes. “It’s so exciting to see Jack,” the unnamed employee told the outlet.