Exclusive: Jack Ma’s office says he remains ‘very positive’ about Alibaba and clarifies that he will continue to hold the tech giant’s shares

The phased sale is part of a long-standing and long term “preset conditional plan to do a partial sell-down for the future that was adopted in August and it won’t lead to any reduction of [Ma’s] holding of shares for now” and “not a single share has been sold”, according to Ma’s office. “We believe the current stock price is far below its fair value.”

Ma has full confidence in Alibaba and will continue to hold its shares, his office added.

‘Would rather die on the beach than in my office’: Jack Ma on retirement

Ma, who co-founded one of the world’s largest e-commerce platforms in 1999, has not been involved in Alibaba’s daily operations since his retirement on his 55th birthday.

He has spent his retirement days travelling around the world, visiting agricultural laboratories in the Netherlands, a tuna farm in Japan and even a night market in Thailand.

Jack Ma returns to China to discuss AI with school in Hangzhou

In July last year, he travelled to the Wageningen University & Research (WUR), a public university in the Netherlands known for its agricultural studies, and visited a hi-tech greenhouse on campus as well as the Netherlands Plant Eco-phenotyping Centre, according to a statement on the university’s website.

Ma, who taught English at the Hangzhou Dianzi University in the Zhejiang provincial capital before embarking on a career in entrepreneurship, would be the highest-profile addition to the faculty of the HKU Business School, as the institution invites successful businesspeople to bring real-world relevance to its academic courses. HKU was ranked 21st in the 2023 QS World University Rankings, while its Business and Economics course was 34th in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.