E-commerce giant Alibaba founder Jack Ma took the top spot on the 2021 Forbes China Philanthropy List, showing the consistency of the entrepreneur’s generosity despite his empire being under strict government scrutiny for its business practices.
The Forbes list, published last week, measures cash given by 100 Chinese entrepreneurs and their businesses in 2020.
Last year, Ma and Alibaba offered combined cash donations of 3.2 billion yuan($493.6 million), according to Forbes.
Ma has focused more on philanthropy and education since he stepped down as Alibaba chairman in 2019. He has made few public appearances since last October when he delivered a controversial speech in Shanghai on China’s financial system, which was widely considered a trigger for Beijing’s subsequent move to suspend the Shanghai and Hong Kong IPOs of Ant Group, Ma’s fintech company that runs Alipay.
Pony Ma and his internet company Tencent ranked third on the list with 2.6 billion yuan of cash donations, while Zhang Yiming and his tech unicorn ByteDance came in fifth, donating 1.2 billion yuan. Eminent Chinese tech CEOs including Ding Lei of NetEase, Wang Xing of Meituan, Richard Liu of JD.com and Lei Jun of Xiaomi also made it onto the Forbes list. Continue to read the full article Caixin Global
