The billionaire Jack Ma has reportedly been hiding out with his family in Tokyo during Beijing's crackdown on the country's star tech firms and its most powerful and wealthy business people.
Ma, the founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, who was China's richest person until the tech clampdown, has rarely been seen in public since criticising the attitude of Chinese regulators towards tech companies at a summit in Shanghai two years ago.
A 48-second online appearance early last year, described by one analyst as akin to a hostage video a brief trip through the Netherlands and Ma's 88 metre superyacht Zen being spotted last summer docking off the Spanish island of Mallorca, the 58-year-old has maintained a low profile outside his native China.
On Tuesday, the Financial Times, owned by the Japanese media company Nikkei, revealed that Ma has most recently been living in Japan.
The paper said for almost six months the former English teacher turned tech superstar has been living with his family in Tokyo. His time has been spent mixing business and pleasure with visits to onsen hot springs and ski resorts in the Japanese countryside as well as regular trips to the US and Israel.
Ma, whose net worth has halved from almost $50 billion to $21.7 bn 18 bn, as regulators have targeted actions against his immense Chinese tech empire, is said to have kept his public activities to a minimum, including attending a handful of private members clubs, one of which is known to be popular with wealthy Chinese.
After Ma, famous for his outspoken nature and eccentric streak, accused regulators of stifling innovation, he has become a lightning rod in the crackdown on big tech.
His comments were reportedly infuriated the president, Xi Jinping, who is now facing protests over China's zero-Covid policies, and Ma disappeared from the public eye for three months.
The Chinese regulators blocked the $34 billion stock market flotation of the Alibaba online payments subsidiary Ant Group, which would have been the biggest share offering in history.
As the government clamps down on the growing public influence held by the country s large tech conglomerates such as Alibaba and Tencent, it ordered Alibaba to sell off some of its media assets, including Hong Kong's South China Morning Post.
Months later, Alibaba was fined a record $2.8 billion for anti-competitive practices, which marked the end of regulatory hostilities against the company, although it had to comply with a comprehensive rectification programme.
Last week, it emerged that China's central bank, which regulates the financial sector, was poised to impose a fine of more than $1 billion on Ant Group. The People's Bank of China has been leading a regulatory overhaul of the company since 2020. The fine could be the first step in Ant securing a financial holding company license and reviving its plans for a stock market listing, according to a report by the company.
The day-to-day running of Ma's tech interests in China has now been delegated to a new generation of executives.
In August, Japan s Softbank sold down its 23.7% stake in Alibaba to 14.6%, making $34 billion. After the global sell-off of tech stocks resulted in record losses, Masayoshi Son invested $20 million in Alibaba in 2000 in a move that helped build the Japanese investment firm's global credentials in the tech field.