
Ask anyone outside China to name the country’s most famous businessman and chances are they will say Jack Ma. Yet since late 2020, when Beijing cracked down on his digital payments firm Ant Group, the once publicity-hungry founder of Alibaba has made only fleeting public appearances. Meanwhile, his control over the e-commerce giant and its associated companies has waned.

A former English teacher, Ma co-founded Alibaba in 1999 and served as the company’s executive chairman until 2019. Ma, who will turn 60 in September, is now worth an estimated $24.5 billion, making him the 78th richest person in the world today according to Forbes.
With known homes in Hangzhou and Hong Kong, as well as several properties in Singapore bought by his wife, he is still able to live the life of a global billionaire, despite the decline in his fortunes. Married with two children, he has taken up painting in recent years, according to a 2021 interview with his close associate Joe Tsai.
Among his other continuing business interests, Ma co-founded the private equity firm Yunfeng Capital in 2010, which now has $10 billion worth of assets under management, according to PitchBook. In 2016, he was named a Sustainable Development Goal advocate by the United Nations, making him part of a group of prominent individuals tasked with advancing global causes against inequality, poverty and environmental pressures. He is also the founder of Zhejiang-based Jack Ma Foundation, a charity which focuses on entrepreneurship, education, medical and environmental protection, as well as women’s leadership.


Left: Jack Ma with entrepreneurs in Kenya, July 20, 2017. In 2019, Jack Ma launched the Africa Netpreneur Prize Initiative as the Jack Ma Foundation’s flagship entrepreneur program. Right: Jack Ma speaks during Alibaba Group’s Global Conference on Women and Entrepreneurship, August 28, 2019. Credit: Alizila
“His efforts have been not just China-focused and have been international,” says Rui Ma. “That is probably more of what makes him an outlier. He’s done a lot of stuff in Africa, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and now Japan.”
Yet for a man once often seen hobnobbing with presidents and other global leaders, the last few years have seen a comparative slide into obscurity. Using company information and published articles, we’ve traced the main events and sightings in recent years of China’s most storied businessman. The most recent sighting was on July 19, when Ma arrived in the coastal Norwegian city of Molde on a yacht named Iris Blue, according to local newspaper Romsdals Budstikke.


Aaron Mc Nicholas is a staff writer at The Wire based in Washington DC. He was previously based in Hong Kong, where he worked at Bloomberg and at Storyful, a news agency dedicated to verifying newsworthy social media content. He earned a Master of Arts in Asian Studies at Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Dublin City University in Ireland.