Alibaba bets on Jack Ma’s comeback to regain market edge

During China’s sweeping crackdown on its tech sector, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s internal forums buzzed with calls to “MAGA” — Make Alibaba Great Again. The company has turned to its most powerful weapon to revive that dream: Jack Ma.

After vanishing from public view towards the end of 2020 during an antitrust crackdown, China’s most famous entrepreneur is back in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s campus in Hangzhou more frequently than he did during the past five years, people familiar with the matter say. 

His influence is increasingly evident, including in the company’s renewed pursuit of artificial intelligence and its bloody price war against e-commerce competitor JD.com Inc. and Meituan. One insider said that Ma supported the company’s plan to spend as much as 50 billion yuan ($7 billion) on subsidies in response to JD.com Inc. heading into the market in a surprise challenge. 

Now run by longtime aides Joe Tsai and Eddie Wu, Alibaba has declined to confirm Ma’s official capacity — but several insiders say the 61-year-old founder is once again deeply involved. He insists on being kept informed about the company’s progress in AI— at one point, pestering a senior manager three times in one day to get an update.

Alibaba bets big on AI and price wars

Ma’s reappearance is widely seen as a symbol of Beijing’s cooling toward its once freewheeling tech titans. A handshake with President Xi Jinping earlier this year sealed his comeback, though Ma is now less assertive than in the days of Davos panels. 

Internally, his presence has jolted the staff’s morale, rekindling the entrepreneurial attitude of his company’s founding. Yet such a comeback carries risks. Beijing disapproves of the “vicious subsidies” behind Alibaba’s ongoing price war, and there is also a more pressing risk. Beijing frowns on the “malicious subsidies” fueling Alibaba’s latest price war, and Ma risks attracting fresh scrutiny. His 2020 speech blasting Chinese banks as “pawn shops” triggered regulators to halt Ant Group’s record IPO, unleashing a trillion-dollar crackdown that slashed Alibaba’s value by nearly $700 billion.

Beijing watches as Ma rekindles influence

For employees, seeing Ma is emotional after years of retreat in Tokyo and Hong Kong. Some longtime employees cried when he addressed them at Ant Group last December.

As reported by Cryptopolitan, the affiliate company of the Chinese conglomerate Alibaba Group revealed in March that it has developed new techniques for training artificial intelligence models. Ant Group utilized Chinese-made semiconductors from Alibaba and Huawei.

On a campus tour this April, he lauded Alibaba’s cloud, chips, and AI models, telling staff, “Technology isn’t just about conquering the stars and the oceans, it’s about preserving the spark in all of us.”

Alibaba, which was once worth more than $800 billion, is still clawing its way back from those lost years. With Wu driving AI, Tsai anchoring the board, and up-and-coming star Jiang Fan reshaping e-commerce, Ma has surrounded himself with a loyal cadre of lieutenants. 

At the same time, the company has promised to spend more than 380 billion yuan on AI and cloud infrastructure, leading to a sharp recovery in cloud revenue and an 88 percent jump in its stock this year — though still well off its highs. 

Although Ma eschews formal titles, his moral authority is significant. “He’s not a day-to-day micromanager,” said Duncan Clark, author of Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built. “But his word — or displeasure — can turn the company around.” 

For employees, the sight of Ma once again donning an Alibaba badge is his silent but influential comeback. He once told state media, “Retirement does not mean I’ve left Alibaba. If Alibaba calls me, I’ll always be there.”

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