Jack Ma ends 20-year reign over Alibaba wealth creation empire

Stepping down as chairman: Jack Ma waving while standing for a photograph with Alibaba CEO Jonathan Lu (left) and co-founder and vice-chairman Joseph ‘Joe’ Tsai in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Ma is giving up the reins of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd after presiding over one of the most spectacular creations of wealth the world has ever seen. — Bloomberg

HONG KONG: Jack Ma is giving up the reins of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd after presiding over one of the most spectacular creations of wealth the world has ever seen.

The former English teacher steps down as executive chairman of China’s largest company on his 55th birthday after amassing a US$41.8bil (RM174bil) fortune – a trove surpassed only by India’s Mukesh Ambani in Asia, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

His record-breaking rise from a bootstrapped entrepreneur working out of his apartment in 1999 to jet-setting e-commerce mogul is one for the history books, mirroring China’s own evolution from technological backwater to world’s No. 2 economy.