By Arjun Kharpal
Publication Date: 2025-11-24 13:18:00
On a cold November evening in Shanghai in 2020, the world’s largest IPO was abruptly canceled by Chinese regulators.
It was Ant Group, the tech giant’s fintech subsidiary Alibaba. The company’s founder, Jack Ma, one of China’s most famous billionaires, was under scrutiny for comments in which he appeared to criticize the country’s financial regulators.
What followed was four years of pressure on Ma’s empire.
Since canceling its IPO, Alibaba has lost more than $400 billion in value, even amid a recent rally. In the months after the failed IPO, Ma retreated from the public eye and Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce player, looked down and outward, with management and structural changes bearing little fruit. The moves did not reflect the determination the company had shown in the past and were a far cry from its current strong position.
But anyone who knows Ma knows that he should never be ignored.
“The hallmark of Jack and his personality is that he never gave up,” said Brian Wong, a former…
