Who is Jack Ma

Ma, China's best-known tech entrepreneur, publicly criticized Chinese regulators in a speech in October 2020, derailing a massive listing by Ant Group. That was followed by regulatory crackdowns

Xiao Jianhua was languishing in detention on bribery and corruption charges - a larger-than-life target of a government crackdown on graft

Ma, who's still revered by many of the company's 200,000-plus employees, struck a markedly more upbeat tone than just four months ago

Alibaba is looking to sell off some of its non-core holdings, including several retail operations, he said

Ma and Alibaba Chairman Joe Tsai have both being buying up shares in recent months as the stock plunged, the newspaper reported Tuesday, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter

Ma, who has mostly stayed away from day-to-day operations since 2020, stunned employees Wednesday by replying to a staff post on Alibaba's internal forum

Ma, whose comments about China's outmoded financial system helped trigger the crackdown, has since largely devoted his time to agricultural pursuits though his foundation

Ma has not sold a single share in Alibaba, as the stock price has not reached the level the billionaire was seeking

The 58-year-old tycoon has a 9.9% stake that's now estimated to be worth $4.1 billion less than almost a year ago

Chinese authorities said on Friday they would wrap up a probe into Ant with the financial technology company paying a fine of almost $1 billion

The limited partners also committed to retaining the two dividends in 2022 with Hangzhou Junhan and Hangzhou Junao to enhance the operation's capital strength

The People's Bank of China (PBOC), which has been driving the revamp at Ant after its $37 billion IPO was scuttled in late 2020, is expected to disclose the fine in the coming days

Jack Ma, who landed in Kathmandu on a special flight via Dhaka in Bangladesh, has business connections in Nepal, the report said

The appointment of Eddie Wu Yongming to replace the affable Daniel Zhang surprised insiders, even though the 48-year-old computer scientist has been with Ma from Alibaba's humblest beginnings

Daniel Zhang to focus on Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group as chairman and CEO; change will take effect September 10

Zhang's shock departure comes after Alibaba announced a six-way restructuring to try and juice growth and create a family of standalone leaders in businesses from cloud computing and logistics

Jack Ma is expected to conduct research, in sustainable agriculture and food production. He will also give seminars on entrepreneurship and innovation

The appointment term for Ma finishes at the end of October 2023 but his contract may be extended on an annual basis

During his visit, Ma discussed topics such as artificial intelligence-powered chatbot ChatGPT and also said he hoped to return to teaching one day, the Yungu School said on its official WeChat account

The Alibaba-owned newspaper said he had made a short stopover in Hong Kong, where he met friends and also briefly visited Art Basel, an international art fair