Jack Ma, Alibaba Group’s billionaire co-founder, has been living in Tokyo for almost six months, following Beijing’s crackdown on the technology sector, the Financial Times reported .
Ma, who lost his title as China’s richest person amid the country’s regulatory crackdown on technology companies, has spent much of the last six months with his family in Tokyo and other parts of Japan, along with visits to the United States and Israel, the daily mentioned, citing people aware of the matter.
The Chinese tycoon’s stay in Japan with his family has included trips to the countryside and ski resorts in the countryside outside Tokyo.
The British newspaper reported that Ma has been keeping a low profile while he takes up hobbies such as painting watercolours, collecting art, and bathing in hot springs.
In Tokyo, Ma is keeping his public activities to a minimum, and his activities are confined to a handful of private members’ clubs in the central districts of Ginza and Marunouchi, the daily said. The 58-year-old entrepreneur has brought along his personal chef and security staff.
Worth mentioning here is that Ma and Masayoshi Son, founder of Japan-based SoftBank Group, are close friends, and Son was an early investor in Alibaba.
Ma with $30.7 billion net worth, as per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has largely disappeared from the public eye since October 2020, when he openly flayed the Chinese authorities for allegedly throttling innovation.
In 2020, Beijing put a brake on Ant Group’s $34-billion IPO at the the eleventh hour, and the fintech company was forced to reorganise as a financial company regulated by China’s central bank.
Chinese authorities launched an investigation into Alibaba for alleged anti-competitive behaviours on its e-commerce platform.
In July this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Ma was planning to relinquish control of Ant Group in a bid to distance from affiliate Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. At present, he holds less than 5 per cent of Alibaba’s shares.
In 2013, Ma gave up the CEO job at Alibaba. The Chinese billionaire oversaw Alibaba for nearly 20 years before stepping down in 2019 as executive chairman when he retired from the company.
