Jack Ma is back. Well, not in an Arnie-in-terminator way, but the Alibaba co-founder, who was believed to have gone missing for several weeks until recently, made a video appearance in an educational event where he addressed teachers working in rural China.
The ecommerce company’s shares jumped by more than 8% on the Hong Kong stock exchange on the back of Ma’s first sighting in three months. Ant Group, Alibaba’s affiliate company, confirmed the video’s authenticity to Bloomberg and TechCrunch.
At the time of writing, the company’s share prices were HKD265.0 ($34.19).
Ma, who used to be an English teacher and founder of #Alibaba, also gives wishes to village teachers via a video on Wednesday, saying usually the activity is held in Sanya in southern Hainan but this year, due to #Covid19 it has to be done via video conference. pic.twitter.com/yfi7oPB5Sb
— Qingqing_Chen (@qingqingparis) January 20, 2021
In his last public appearance, the celebrated businessman criticized China’s financial regulation policy. Later in November, the Shanghai stock exchange halted Ant group’s potentially record-breaking IPO.
At that time, the firm said it was halting the IPO because of “significant issues such as the changes in financial technology regulatory environment”. In December, Chinese regulators opened up a probe into the company’s equity investments.
In the past month, a slew of rumors started to surface after Ma failed to make an appearance on his own talent show, Africa’s Business Heroes. While Beijing and Ma might not be best friends just yet, his appearance will alleviate some concern about his whereabouts.
Published January 20, 2021 — 09:31 UTC