How Alibaba Founder's Meet With Donald Trump Upset China's President
NDTV
Now, to the cautious cheer of investors, the billionaire Alibaba e-commerce tycoon is taking his first tentative steps back on to the global stage with a low-key trip to Europe where he's cultivating like horticulture.
This was supposed to be Jack Ma's finest hour: a year ago to the day, his Ant Group was meant to go public in a $37 billion blaze of glory. Instead Beijing reined in his empire, abruptly clipping the wings of corporate China's biggest star.
Now, to the cautious cheer of investors, the billionaire Alibaba e-commerce tycoon is taking his first tentative steps back on to the global stage with a low-key trip to Europe where he's cultivating like horticulture.
It's a far cry from the height of Ma's statesman-like powers in 2017 when he travelled to New York to meet President-elect Donald Trump for one-on-one talks in Trump Tower days before inauguration and promised to create a million American jobs.
That high-profile outing had roiled the Chinese government, which first learned of the meeting and jobs pledge along with the rest of the world when Ma held an informal televised Q&A session with reporters in the lobby of the skyscraper, according to four people close to Alibaba with knowledge of the matter and one Beijing government source.