Where is Jack Ma?
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 4 May 2021
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On the eve of what would have been the world's largest share listing, Ant Financial founder Jack Ma, the Chinese billionaire mysteriously disappeared. Things started to go wrong for Ma after he told a room full of banking regulators that their methods were out of date and not fit for purpose. Shortly afterwards, the Chinese government cancelled the listing and Jack went silent. So what has happened to Jack Ma? Journalist Celia Hatton, who spent 15 years living and reporting in China, investigates.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's a gorgeous sunny day in London and the Sheik Soho neighborhood, the perfect spot for a little thought experiment. |
| 0:10.0 | I'm just outside Facebook's UK headquarters. Last year this company pulled an $86 billion in |
| 0:16.3 | revenue. And of course Facebook has a famous founder, Mark Zuckerberg. So let's imagine that one day Mark Zuckerberg gives a controversial |
| 0:25.4 | speech at a major business event and then simply vanishes from the public eye. |
| 0:29.6 | All his engagements cancelled, silence for months. |
| 0:33.2 | Well, that's what happened in China last year. |
| 0:36.3 | The country's richest man, the founder of tech giants worth even more than Facebook, |
| 0:41.0 | abruptly dropped out of the spotlight. |
| 0:43.0 | I'm Celia Hatton and for the BBC World Service this is the story of Jack Ma and what's happened to him. |
| 0:50.0 | Chinese billionaire Jack Ma is reportedly missing after criticizing regulators in China and the state-owned banks during a speech, Ma, the founder of the |
| 0:57.8 | The billionaire founder of China's giant online retailer Ali Baba has not been seen in public since October. |
| 1:03.2 | Jack Ma hasn't been seen in public and now many are questioning where is Jack Ma? |
| 1:09.5 | Duncan, where is Jack Ma? |
| 1:13.8 | Well, that's a guessing game. |
| 1:15.2 | Most days we think he's in China. |
| 1:16.8 | Most people, you know, there was a recent financial time story indicating that his private |
| 1:20.0 | jet certainly has been flying within the Chinese borders to Hainan back to |
| 1:23.3 | Hong Do to Shanghai whether he's on the jet we never know but we have not seen |
| 1:28.4 | Jackmah outside China so I don't think Jack Ma can easily lead the country. |
| 1:33.0 | That's Duncan Clark. |
| 1:34.0 | He's a friend of mine from the 15 years I spent living and reporting in China. |
| 1:39.0 | But more importantly, he's known Jack Ma for decades. |
... |
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