A 1,100-year-old poem cost Meituan’s outspoken CEO US$2.5bil

Delivery riders for Meituan, one of China’s biggest food delivery firms, chat while waiting for orders outside a restaurant in Beijing. Even before Wang’s post, state media had run regular exposes describing the plight of Meituan’s delivery drivers, helping stoke online outrage. — AFP

It took just 28 Chinese characters on an obscure social media platform to ignite a controversy that’s rattled the country’s tech industry.

Meituan CEO Wang Xing lost US$2.5bil (RM10.29bil) of his wealth after he posted verses from a millennium-old poem about the misguided attempts of China’s first emperor to quash dissent. Wang, a usually plain-speaking engineer who enjoys literary classics, later scrubbed his post and explained he was really calling out the short-sightedness of his own industry, trying to clarify there was no implied criticism of the government. But the damage was done: Meituan shed US$26bil (RM107.08bil) over two days, the biggest loser in a broader tech rout.