Two years ago, Ma, who propelled China to the top position in high-tech and a booming economy, had a run-in with Xi's administration which he had been accusing of stifling innovation. An intense scrutiny of his high-tech conglomerates and punitive action followed. Ma off and on disappeared from public view these two years and finally left the mainland six months back.

TOKYO, Nov 30: Jack Ma has left China for good and is living in Tokyo for the last six months.

Chinese tech magnate and billionaire Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, who has not been seen in public for several months, is now reported to have been living in Tokyo with his family since he disappeared from Chinese mainland bag and baggage following President Xi Jinping's crackdown on his tech biz and other billionaire businessmen.

Jack Ma, who was China's richest man, has been visiting the US and Israel frequently during this period in Tokyo. At other times he visits the countryside resorts in Japan. Ma has been socialising mainly within several private members’ clubs, according to his own media house SCMP. He is a close friend of Masayoshi Son, founder of the Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp, Financial Times reported. Son had made a $20 million investment in Alibaba in 2020. SoftBank recently scaled down its holdings in Alibaba from 23.7% to 14.6% due to financial constraints.

Over a couple of years now, the outspoken billionaire had been criticising the Chinese Government's regulations and got into trouble with it, with the result that the public offering ($34 billion) of fintech giant Ant Group Co. was thwarted. At a function in Shanghai Ma had compared Chinese banks to pawn shops. The eccentric Ma had been accusing the regulators of stifling innovation. China's antitrust regulator launched a probe into Alibaba's business practices, the e- commerce giant, in retaliation. The Government also ordered Alibaba to give up Ma's media assets like Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. Xi began a crackdown on billionaires, especially tech companies too. Ma was no more in limelight and his public appearances also became a rare event since 2020-end.

He was last seen in July when he visited Wageningen University & Research, the Netherlands.

Six months ago he had quietly left China, taking along his personal chef and security staff, and was living quietly in Tokyo, the paper said.

Jack Ma's business is currently run by the next generation executives at the conglomerate. Ma who was worth about US$61 billion in October 2020, is now worth about US$30.7 billion only. He had long ago stepped down as the chairman of Alibaba and is currently on the board of Jack Ma foundation.

(SEE video: Davos 2015 - An Insight, An Idea with Jack Ma - A conversation with Jack Ma)