Ma Knows Best

Alibaba’s Jack Ma thumped eBay and has the world’s biggest e-commerce site. Now he’s looking to whup Silicon Valley. And maybe fix the China-U.S. trade deficit during his lunch break.

- Bill Powell

IN the aftermath of the recent U.S. election, as notables from near and far (and really far) made their pilgrimages to Trump Tower hoping to figure out what this most unexpected presidency might look like, these two made the oddest of couples: the tall, tanned, elaborately coiffed president-elect and the elfin CEO of the most famous company in China, a country candidate Donald Trump had repeatedly excoriated on the campaign trail as a trade villain.

In the extraordinary life of Ma Yun, known to most people in the West as Jack Ma, this meet and greet on steroids was yet another of many extraordinary moments. Ma, the founder and executive chairman of the Alibaba Group, had come to Manhattan to tell Trump he wanted to help American entrepreneurs sell their goods directly into China— using, of course, his e-commerce site to connect buyers to sellers. As Ma was speaking to the assembled press, Trump at one point leaned into the microphone and chirped, “He loves this country.”

A few seconds later, Trump realized he might have erred. Proclaiming to the world that the most globally visible businessman in a country run by an authoritarian regime that is, at best, a strategic rival of Washington’s “loves” the United States might not be good for Ma back home. So Trump, towering over his tiny counterpart, awkwardly interjected, “He loves China too,” as Ma grinned but said nothing.