Description
The Alibaba chief paid for pushing back against Beijing. But the shift in attitude also speaks to a growing wealth gap and diminished opportunities for the young.
Summary
- In China, Jack Ma is synonymous with success.
- But lately, public sentiment has soured and Daddy Ma has become the man people in China love to hate.
- An outstanding people’s billionaire like Jack Ma will definitely be hanged on top of the lamppost,” an online commentator wrote in a widely circulated social media post, referring to the famous lynching slogan in the French Revolution, “À la lanterne!” Credit...Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA, via Shutterstock Today, Alibaba and its archrival, Tencent, control more personal data and are more intimately involved in everyday life in China than Google, Facebook and other American tech titans are in the United States.