via Flickr Creative Commons by UN Climate Change
Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, who founded Alibaba, has kept a low profile since late October, raising speculation as to his whereabouts.
Numerous media reports tie his disappearance to comments he made at about the same time in Shanghai that may have upset the Chinese government. He criticized Chinese regulators for stifling innovation, accusing them of having a “pawnshop mentality.”
“What we need is to build a healthy financial system, not systematic financial risks,” he said. “To innovate without risks is to kill innovation. There’s no innovation without risks in the world,” reported CNN Business.
According to Time, Chinese authorities called Ma in for questioning on November 2. Shortly after, China reversed its approval of a planned IPO for Ant Financial, Alibaba’s fintech arm. Last week, producers dropped Ma as a judge for a televised contest for entrepreneurs, a program Ma helped to create, An Alibaba spokesperson, speaking to CNN, blamed the decision on a “scheduling conflict.”
“The government is reminding companies that, at the end of the day, we’re the ones who make the regulations, we’re the ones who issue the licenses,” says Mark Natkin, founder of Beijing-based IT research firm Marbridge Consulting. “And if you forget, then you may find an entire area of your business doesn’t get licensed, or your IPO gets halted, or whatever we need to do just to make sure you know who’s the parent and who’s the child,” he told Time.
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