Why has Jack Ma, Alibaba’s figurehead and China’s richest man, disappeared?

If Elon Musk was out of sight for more than two months – at its most unbearable, I’m sure we all wished that would happen – investors would send a research team. Where is the figurehead who has taken their company and its actions to unprecedented heights?

His Chinese counterpart, Jack Ma, has now been missing from sight for more than two months, with his company under investigation by Chinese authorities. We don’t know where he is. Here in Asia, we wonder where the Chinese entrepreneur has gone.

There are rumors that it is highly likely that Ma was ordered not to leave China. He might just keep his head under the parapets on his own. Either way, the situation is so dire and politically charged that the Beijing government is now reportedly censoring news in Chinese media about the antitrust investigation into Ma’s baby.

Ma, co-founder and figurehead of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding (BABA), was last seen on October 31, when he took part in the gala extravaganza broadcast live to kick off the festival. Chinese spending, “Double 11.” It was exactly one week after he gave a speech at a financial conference in Shanghai in which he criticized Chinese banking regulators and industry, calling on state-owned banks for have a “pawnshop mindset”.

Bad move. Several very influential bankers and regulators were in attendance, stammering in their Nongfu Spring bottled water. Behind the scenes, we hear, Chinese President Xi Jinping was furious.

Xi had already met privately a few years ago with Ma and the founder of video game maker and application operator WeChat Tencent Holdings (TCEHY), Pony Ma (who is unrelated), to remind the two most wealthy and most famous rulers in China. that their businesses only operate on the orders of the Communist Party. Xi, he didn’t need to remind them, is the only sheriff in town.

A few days after this speech from Shanghai, Ma and the two senior executives of Ant Group, the company Ma founded to process payments for Alibaba’s websites, were questioned to question their freewheeling financial model, which extends consumer loans to buyers and offers a suite of third-party financial services. On November 3, Ant was banned from listing its shares for the first time, just two days before what was predicted at US $ 37 billion to be the largest public offering in world history.

President Xi personally canceled the IPO, says The Wall Street Journal. This rings true, since the Shanghai Stock Exchange had already cleared the offer before ordering its withdrawal at the last minute. Xi “has shown waning tolerance” towards large private companies wielding capital and influence – and crowded executives defying the iron rule of man dubbed “the emperor for life ” from China.

Chinese regulators are now looking to restructure and possibly dismantle Ant Group, which runs the ubiquitous digital wallet application Alipay. They are also concerned about business practices not only at Alibaba but also at rivals such as JD.com (JD) and Pinduoduo (PDD). Chinese e-commerce sites have a notorious “1 in 2” policy for many merchants that requires them to enter into deals to sell their products only through the single platform website.

Ant also gets his other shin kicked. U.S. President Donald Trump made one of his last actions in office an executive order on Tuesday to ban U.S. individuals and businesses from dealing with Alipay and seven other Chinese apps, including Tencent’s WeChat Pay and QQ Wallet. Trump said the apps are capable of capturing “large swaths” of personal and sensitive user information, making them a threat to national security.

Ma suddenly finds himself a politician persona non grata. The Chinese government’s propaganda branch has issued a directive to news organizations to follow the official line of the Alibaba investigation and not to engage in any analysis of the events without authorization, the Financial Times reports today, citing two people who read the order.

Several online blog posts about Ma’s whereabouts have been censored and removed, according to the FT. Additionally, an Alibaba-backed online post that issued an editorial warning about excessive sanctions imposed on Chinese tech companies was forced to shut down for a month.

Ma didn’t show up on her own TV show in November. He has personally heard the arguments of entrepreneurs seeking to become Africa’s trade heroes, in the spectacle of this name. But when the last episode aired, it was nowhere to be found, its place being taken by an Alibaba executive. An Alibaba spokesperson said that “Jack Ma must have missed the final due to a scheduling conflict.”

Ma is not on the official list of those prevented from leaving China. But Bloomberg reports that he was told in December not to leave the country. A ban on leaving hashtag has been removed by censors from China’s Twitter-like app Weibo (WB).

Musk may be the richest man in America, and even now in the world. But the limelight-loving Ma is his direct counterpart in China, his fortune of US $ 65.6 billion making him the richest man in the country. Ma stepped down as executive chairman of Alibaba in September 2019, but his shadow over the company looms large as he is a mythical figure among Chinese investors chasing the next ‘unicorn’ startup to transform. into a billion dollar business.

There is a danger for the Communist Party in confronting Ma. While political rights are non-existent in China, personal and business property rights are well protected. Putting Alibaba in the party’s sights will frighten other successful entrepreneurs, most of whom are already trying to hide large parts of their wealth abroad, out of the hands of the Communist Party.

Still, the Communist Party will usually find a way to bring you down if it wants you to fall. Allegations of bribery and corruption are the normal charges.

Temporarily, it seems, they already had their wish with Mr. Ma. I bet he keeps quiet after opening his mouth in Shanghai caused him such trouble in Shanghai. But when and where will it surface next ?!