SPOTTED

Jack Ma Resurfaces at Alibaba HQ After Long Disappearance

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.

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.