Alibaba Group founder and billionaire Jack Ma has not been seen in public for over two months, according to media reports.
Jack Ma has been under the eyes of the Chinese government after Ant's massive $37 billion initial public offering (IPO) was suspended in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
According to some reports, he did not appear at the season finale of his own talent show called Africa's Business Heroes and an Alibaba executive acted as his replacement.
Chinese firms like Alibaba and Tencent have been increasingly under the scrutiny of the Chinese government after controlling various sectors including tech, e-commerce - having an influence on virtually every aspect of life.
They also have amassed billions of dollars of turnovers every after year, expanding their reach over various other businesses.
In India, Alibaba has investments in tech companies like PayTM, its e-commerce wing PayTM Mall. The company also has invested in food delivery firm Zomato, online grocer Big Basket and e-commerce company Snapdeal.
In December last year, Chinese antitrust authorities had launched an investigation into Ma's Alibaba Group holdings.
China's Central Bank had also asked the company to reorganise lending and other consumer finance operations.
The biggest blow to Jack Ma remains the suspension of its IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong in November, hailed as the world's biggest public offering.
In October last year, he had slammed the Chinese regulators for "lagging the times."
(Published 04 January 2021, 11:21 IST)
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