What has Jack Ma been doing all this time, when he seemed to be hiding and had not appeared for a long time? It is almost certain that he was very devoted to his passion for painting.
In a recent report by the Wall Street Journal, the founder of Alibaba and Ant Group is learning to paint with oil paints. At first, he liked to paint birds and flowers.
But recently, Jack Ma tried out a new image theme, namely abstract painting. It is based on a new painting by Jack Ma that WSJ has seen for himself.
Perhaps because he could no longer intensively take care of his business or public speaking which used to be his hobby, Jack Ma chose to spend his time painting. This was first stated some time ago by Masayoshi Son, the boss of Softbank who is also his friend.
"But we don't always talk about business. Jack Ma likes to draw and has sent me some pictures," Son said of their conversation. Son also replied by sending pictures that he made, sometimes he even took the time to draw them before going to bed.
Then recently, another Alibaba founder Joe Tsai also confirmed it. "He's actually fine, really good. He paints as a hobby, his painting is quite good," said Tsai.
Jack Ma has been hiding for about 10 months in an unknown location so far. As reported, Jack Ma has been missing since October 2020 after criticizing the Chinese government's financial system. His company was also subject to investigation, supposedly on the direct orders of President Xi Jinping.
"One of the factors behind the raids on technology companies was the desire to reduce financial risk, for example limiting Ant's lending activities," said Nicholas Lardy of the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE).
"But another reason may be Xi's desire to cut off alternative sources of power that might eventually challenge the Chinese government's dominance," he added on why Jack Ma and his company were being curtailed.