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Sunday, 26 April 2020 15:54

Jack Ma: The billionaire doing his best to stop coronavirus (and fix China's reputation).

 

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Jack Ma,the richest man in China opened his own Twitter account last month, in the middle of the Covid-19 outbreak. So far, most of his posts has been devoted to his unrivalled campaign to deliver medical supplies to almost every country around the world.

"One world, one fight!" Jack Ma enthused in one of his first messages. "Together, we can do this!" he cheered in another.

Ma is the driving force behind a widespread operation to ship medical supplies to more than 150 countries so far, sending face masks and ventilators to many places that have been elbowed out of the global brawl over life-saving equipment.

Starting in March, the Jack Ma foundation and the related Alibaba foundation began airlifting supplies to Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and even to politically sensitive areas including Iran, Israel, Russia and the US.

Ma has also donated millions to coronavirus vaccine research and a handbook of medical expertise from doctors in his native Zhejiang province has been translated from Chinese into 16 languages. But it's the medical shipments that have been making headlines, setting Ma apart.

Jack Ma is famous for being the charismatic English teacher who went on to create China's biggest technology company. Alibaba is now known as the "Amazon of the East". Ma started the company inside his tiny apartment in the Chinese coastal city of Hangzhou, in the centre of China's factory belt, back in 1999. Alibaba has since grown to become one of the dominant players in the world's second largest economy, with key stakes in China's online, banking and entertainment worlds. Ma himself is worth more than $40bn.

Officially, he stepped down as Alibaba's chairman in 2018. He said he was going to focus on philanthropy. But Ma retained a permanent seat on Alibaba's board. Coupled with his wealth and fame, he remains one of the most powerful men in China.

 

Additional Reporting by BBC.