Jack Ma makes a rare appearance on Alibaba’s family day at company’s Hangzhou campus

Jack Ma, the founder and former chairman of Alibaba Group Holding, has made a rare public appearance on Monday at the company’s Hangzhou campus on AliDay, the annual gathering of the company’s family members.

Ma, who retired as Alibaba’s chairman on his 55th birthday in September 2019, did not give a speech during the event. An unattributed photograph on NetEase.com’s news application showed him clad in a blue T-shirt, surrounded by staff. Alibaba’s spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The entrepreneur, who said he spent 40 per cent of the year travelling all around the world while he was the titular head of the world’s largest e-commerce platform operator, has reduced his public appearances since a controversial speech in Shanghai last October, days before Ant Group’s initial public offering was called off.

Ma delivered a video-recorded speech on January 20 to mark his philanthropic foundation’s the annual Rural Teacher Initiative event. In April, a video clip showed Ma attending a meeting of the Russian Geographical society, chaired by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The entrepreneur is on the society’s board of trustees, which also included the Swedish billionaire Frederik Paulsen Jr and BP’s chief executive Bernhard Looney, besides Russian officials.