Chinese billionaire Jack Ma (馬雲), founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴), is to step down as president of the elite business school he founded after having been caught in a Beijing clampdown on tech titans, the Financial Times reported Monday.
Ma, formerly one of China’s most flamboyant entrepreneurs, has largely disappeared from public view since Alibaba’s fintech arm was investigated and fined by regulators for alleged monopolistic practices.
The Financial Times report cited sources as saying that Hupan University — an elite academy for Chinese business executives established in Ma’s hometown of Hangzhou in 2015 — has changed its name and would restructure its curriculum.
Photo: Reuters
Ma is not to hold a high-level title at the restructured organization, the report said, as Beijing seeks to limit his influence.
“Hupan is like an elite community, it’s one of [the authorities’] main targets,” a person who worked with Ma was quoted as saying by the Financial Times.
Videos on Chinese social media earlier this month showed construction workers using a blowtorch to remove characters from a large “Hupan University” sign.
The Financial Times last month reported the university was forced to suspend new student enrolments after pressure from Beijing to dismantle Ma’s fintech empire.
In a series of blows for the group, Alibaba was last month fined a record 18.2 billion yuan (US$2.8 billion) by antitrust authorities, and its fintech arm, Ant Group Co (螞蟻集團), was ordered to restructure after a planned listing was scuppered.
Alibaba’s reprimand is believed to have been triggered by a speech that Ma gave in October last year, in which he criticized state financial institutions for being outdated.
The crackdown has since widened to include many of Alibaba’s competitors in China’s ballooning tech sector.
On Ireland’s blustery western seaboard, researchers are gleefully flying giant kites — not for fun, but in the hope of generating renewable electricity and sparking a “revolution” in wind energy. “We use a kite to capture the wind and a generator at the bottom of it that captures the power,” said Padraic Doherty of Kitepower, the Dutch firm behind the venture. At its test site in operation since September 2023 near the small town of Bangor Erris, the team transports the vast 60-square-meter kite from a hangar across the lunar-like bogland to a generator. The kite is then attached by a
Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準精密), a metal casing supplier owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday announced plans to invest US$1 billion in the US over the next decade as part of its business transformation strategy. The Apple Inc supplier said in a statement that its board approved the investment on Thursday, as part of a transformation strategy focused on precision mold development, smart manufacturing, robotics and advanced automation. The strategy would have a strong emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI), the company added. The company said it aims to build a flexible, intelligent production ecosystem to boost competitiveness and sustainability. Foxconn
Leading Taiwanese bicycle brands Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大機械) and Merida Industry Co (美利達工業) on Sunday said that they have adopted measures to mitigate the impact of the tariff policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration. The US announced at the beginning of this month that it would impose a 20 percent tariff on imported goods made in Taiwan, effective on Thursday last week. The tariff would be added to other pre-existing most-favored-nation duties and industry-specific trade remedy levy, which would bring the overall tariff on Taiwan-made bicycles to between 25.5 percent and 31 percent. However, Giant did not seem too perturbed by the
TARIFF CONCERNS: Semiconductor suppliers are tempering expectations for the traditionally strong third quarter, citing US tariff uncertainty and a stronger NT dollar Several Taiwanese semiconductor suppliers are taking a cautious view of the third quarter — typically a peak season for the industry — citing uncertainty over US tariffs and the stronger New Taiwan dollar. Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科技) said that customers accelerated orders in the first half of the year to avoid potential tariffs threatened by US President Donald Trump’s administration. As a result, it anticipates weaker-than-usual peak-season demand in the third quarter. The US tariff plan, announced on April 2, initially proposed a 32 percent duty on Taiwanese goods. Its implementation was postponed by 90 days to July 9, then
RSS