Chinese billionaire Jack Ma has not been seen for more than two months after publicly attacking Beijing financial officials – even skipping his own reality show, according to reports.
The Alibaba founder came under fire in October for a speech attacking China’s financial regulation system for stifling innovation and calling for reform of what he called an “ old people’s club, ” The Telegraph noted.
Within days, Chinese regulators halted a $ 37 billion equity debut of Alibaba’s financial partner, Ant Group, and launched an anti-monopoly investigation into Ma’s e-commerce giant, known as the ‘Amazon of China’.
Ma has not been seen in public since his controversial speech, The Telegraph said, and his last tweet was even earlier in October.
Speculation began to swirl about his whereabouts when he failed to show up as a judge in the finale of an “Apprentice” style TV show he had made, “Africa’s Business Heroes,” noted the British Financial Times (FT).
One of his latest tweets was about the show, with Ma gushing from the finalists, “Can’t wait to meet them!”
In addition to being replaced for the finale, Ma’s photo was removed from the jury web page and omitted from a promotional video, the FT said of the finale which was filmed in November but has not yet been fully aired.
An Alibaba spokesperson blamed him for missing the finale of his own show, which he excitedly tweeted about, the FT said.
“We have nothing more to add,” a spokesperson told Business Insider.
Before the scandal, Ma had been China’s richest man and worth more than $ 60 billion, Business Insider said.
His net worth has since taken a hit of $ 12 billion in the past two months as regulators tightened up his businesses, and he is now the fourth richest person in China, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.