Forbes China names Alibaba founder Jack Ma country’s most generous entrepreneur in 2020, as tech giants top charity list

Jack Ma donated nearly US$500mil in 2020, a year that ended with his companies Alibaba and Ant Group facing mounting regulatory pressure from Beijing. Tencent founder Pony Ma and ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming also made the top five, with China’s tech industry becoming the most charitable for the year. — SCMP

Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, was the most generous Chinese entrepreneur last year, according to the latest Forbes China list published on Tuesday.

Ma, who retired as Alibaba’s chairman in 2019, has largely faded from public view since a controversial speech in Shanghai last October that was later linked to the Chinese government scuttling the initial public offering of Ant Group, the fintech offshoot of Alibaba also founded by Ma. Since then, he has largely focused on hobbies and philanthropy, his close business partner Joseph Tsai said in an interview last month.