Do we like Jack Ma?
Our score: 5 out of 10. No harmful campaigning turned up and there's real philanthropy, but a serious unanswered allegation and some dismissive boss talk keep this in the middle.
Jack Ma is the Alibaba co-founder who went from a teaching background to building one of China's biggest companies. He became the face of Chinese tech, the sort of bloke who turned up at Davos and told rooms of executives how to think. These days he keeps a much lower profile, with most of his public appearances tied to education and AI.
His clash with Beijing is the big story of his career. After the Ant Group saga, Chinese regulators hit Alibaba with a record antitrust fine of about US$2.75 billion in April 2021, which Reuters-style coverage framed as a tumultuous stretch for him. He later stepped back from the spotlight, and his reappearances have been closely read as signals about how Beijing treats private business.
On the harm check, we found nothing from Ma about LGBTQ+ people, migrants or the climate, so there is no pattern to point to. The marks against him are about tone. He defended the 12-hour, six-day 996 work schedule in 2019, then said forcing staff into it was inhumane. At a mass staff wedding he told couples to follow 669, meaning sex six times in six days, and China Women's News and a queer workers' centre voice asked whether it was his place to comment.
The serious one is the alleged phone call. In April 2025 the Guardian and the ICIJ reported that French court records allegedly show Ma phoned a businessman in France in 2021 and relayed a message from Chinese officials urging him to return. He is reported to have said “I think you don't have any other choice.” Ma did not respond to requests for comment, and the case against the businessman was a matter between him and the Chinese state, so the full picture isn't known.
Nothing big has landed lately. In January 2026 he spoke by video to rural education stakeholders, saying the question is how to teach children to use AI well rather than whether to use it. That fits the pattern of his recent public life, which is mostly education and tech talk.
The good stuff is real. In March 2020 he and the Alibaba Foundation pledged test kits, masks and protective gear to all 54 African countries during the pandemic, and he has kept up his teacher-focused giving. It's the sort of generosity that gets cited a lot, though it's also been read as soft diplomacy, and that depends on how you view it.