Jack Ma filmed action scenes with great martial artists, sang duets with pop stars and appeared at corporate rallies dressed as a glam rocker and as a masked impersonator of Michael Jackson. He’s not a genius.
Thus, speculation increased after the prominent businessman and co-founder of Alibaba Group disappeared from public view last year. He criticized Chinese regulators for what he called his overly cautious attitude towards the country’s financial system, and officials cracked down on their business empire shortly after. After that, he started skipping previously scheduled appearances, raising questions in China and the global media about his fate.
Mr. Ma now appears to be trying to put speculation aside.
On Wednesday, he made his first public appearance since the end of October. He spoke at an event broadcast live in honor of educators in Chinese village schools. He did not address his problems, but said he would spend more time on philanthropic ventures.
“In that time, my colleagues and I have been learning and thinking,” he said, according to a transcript of his comments published in the local media. “We are going to launch ourselves with more determination in educational philanthropy”.
Mr. Ma, a former English teacher, said it was the responsibility of executives of his generation to work for common prosperity by revitalizing rural areas and developing education in the villages. His speech was consistent with his recent efforts to move away from Alibaba’s daily operations and focus more on philanthropy, although he maintains considerable control over his commercial empire.
His statements were widely covered by Chinese state media, suggesting, at the very least, that Beijing’s censorship machine approved his statements. His appearance relieved some investors, who raised Hong Kong-listed Alibaba shares by about 9 percent in the afternoon session.
Mr. Ma, who ran Alibaba from its founding in 1999 until its emergence as one of the largest and most valuable technology companies in the world, has long been cautious about the Chinese government. Like many businessmen in the country, he established ties with the Beijing government to avoid regulatory problems.
But the rise of Alibaba’s sister company, Ant Group, has increasingly put it at odds with the state-dominated financial system of China. Ant Group, which was once a subsidiary of Alibaba and offers services such as electronic payments and loans, now plays an important role in the financial lives of many Chinese. It had planned an initial public offering for the end of last year in Shanghai and Hong Kong, in what was expected to be the largest fundraiser of its kind.
But in October, at a public event, Ma accused Chinese state-owned banks of behaving like “pawnshops” and the country’s financial regulators of limiting innovation through risk obsession.
About a week later, the government suspended the Ant Group’s initial public offering and later ordered it to shake up its business practices. He then started an antitrust investigation into Alibaba.
Amid the official reaction, Mr. Ma began to move away from previously scheduled appearances, including as a judge at an African entrepreneur-themed talent show he had created. This sparked speculation, especially after other entrepreneurs who challenged Chinese officials were treated with heavy punishments.
Republicans foreshadowed their opposition to President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s economic plans on Tuesday, pressing Janet L. Yellen, his nominee for Treasury secretary, to advocate a $ 1.9 trillion stimulus proposal that would provide more direct payments to individuals, expanded unemployment benefits and money to states and cities.
Republican opposition on the Senate Finance Committee during Yellen’s confirmation hearing underscored the challenge the new Biden government will face in trying to bring its proposal to Congress, given the tight control it has in the Senate and the House.
“We are looking at another spending burst,” said Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican. “The only organizational principle that I can understand, it seems, is to spend as much money as possible, apparently just to spend it.”
Toomey questioned Biden’s plans to send more money to states and cities, a move that Republicans opposed last year and which has been withdrawn from the latest round of stimulus talks to get approval for the $ 900 billion package aid. He also expressed concern about Biden’s proposed tax increases and his request to raise the minimum wage to $ 15.
Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, took advantage of Biden’s call to raise the $ 7.25 minimum wage, arguing with Yellen that it would hurt small businesses while they are vulnerable and lead to further job losses.
Other Republicans have complained that Biden’s economic plan is fiscally irresponsible, given the country’s growing debt and federal budget deficit, which hit $ 3 trillion last year. Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, said Biden’s plan is not sufficiently targeted and that giving an additional $ 1,400 in direct payments to some people who have not lost jobs is not an efficient use of federal resources.
Yellen refuted his arguments point by point, arguing that doing too little to stimulate the economy would be more expensive in the long run. She said economic research has shown minimal job losses with the increase in the minimum wage, pointing to studies by neighboring states when one imposes an increase and the other does not.
She also argued that unemployment benefits, which under Biden’s plan would be supplemented with an extra $ 400 a week, are not enough to address the financial difficulties that families face and that $ 1,400 stimulus checks are important in situations where a person, usually a woman, has left her job to care for children who are out of school.
“There are many families that support exceptional financial burdens that are not covered by unemployment insurance,” she said.
Ms. Yellen offered some guarantees to Republicans who fear Democrats will repeal the entire 2017 tax law, which cut taxes for individuals and corporations. She said that while Biden wants to make changes to the law, including raising the corporate tax rate, such actions are not an immediate priority.
“The focus now is on providing relief and helping families keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, not on raising taxes,” she said.
The revived Pay Check Protection Program got off to a smoother – and slower – start than last spring, when desperate borrowers flooded banks with loan applications and overwhelmed government computer systems.
The program was widely opened on Tuesday when the Small Business Administration, which runs the aid program, began accepting applications from all creditors. The agency allowed a small subset of community creditors and small banks to begin submitting their orders last week.
In the first week of the program, the agency approved about 60,000 applications from almost 3,000 creditors, the agency said on Tuesday. These investments totaled US $ 5 billion, consuming about 2% of the US $ 284 billion that the program has available to borrow.
These figures do not include loan applications sent to the agency on Tuesday, the first day that most lenders were authorized to submit loan applications. New fraud checks and other protections mean that most applications will take at least a day to get approved.
The program is open to both first-time borrowers and some who have returned: the most affected small businesses, those with a drop in sales of at least 25% since the pandemic began, are eligible for a second loan.
Lenders said they are preparing for significant demand, especially for second-round loans. John Asbury, chief executive of Atlantic Union Bank in Richmond, Virginia, said he expected at least 60% of his bank’s 11,000 borrowers to return for another loan.
Treasury Department officials said they anticipate that the program’s funding will be sufficient to meet all requests. Mr. Asbury hopes this is true.
“We just don’t know how much of a hurry we are going to have,” he said. “We are getting a lot of calls.”
Bed Bath & Beyond and Kohl’s said they were abandoning MyPillow products amid a reaction to comments made by Mike Lindell, the chief executive of the bedding company, who has been promoting unmasked conspiracy theories involving the election on social media.
Lindell said Kohl’s and Bed Bath & Beyond acted after people on social media started to pressure them, according to an interview published on Monday on a pro-Trump website called Right Side Broadcasting Network. Lindell, who said he spoke to Bed Bath & Beyond minutes before the interview, said, without citing evidence, that the criticism came from false accounts.
Bed Bath & Beyond said on Tuesday that its decision was rooted in the performance of MyPillow. “We have rationalized our assortment to discontinue a series of low-performing items and brands,” said a representative in a statement. A Kohl’s spokeswoman said that “there has been a reduction in customer demand for MyPillow” and that the chain did not plan to buy future inventory after clearing its inventory.
Lindell, whose company is a major advertiser on Fox News, has become a prominent supporter of President Trump. He attracted a wave of attention last week after a photograph of partially visible notes he was carrying for the White House showed a mention of the Insurrection Law. MyPillow also offered a discount code “FightforTrump” on the day of the Capitol riots. On social media, groups like Sleeping Giants, which was created to stifle advertising dollars for Breitbart News, have been asking suppliers about their support for MyPillow products.
Mr. Lindell criticized the Sleeping Giants in the interview.
“These guys don’t understand, they’re scared,” said Lindell of Bed Bath & Beyond and Kohl’s. “They were good partners. In fact, I told them, you can come back whenever you want. “