China Troubles Boomerang On SoftBank’s 2021 Vision

China Troubles Boomerang On SoftBank’s 2021 Vision

Masayoshi Son listens during a news conference in Tokyo, Japan. Other than founder Jack Ma, arguably no one has more reason to be despondent about Alibaba Group's 52% stock loss over the last year than Masayoshi Son. SoftBank billionaire Son, after all, did more than virtually anyone else to help Ma, then an obscure English teacher in Hangzhou, create China's most important tech startup. That was back in 2000, when Son handed Ma $20 million of seed money. The bet paid off spectacularly. When Ma took his e-commerce juggernaut public in New York in 2014, Son's Alibaba stake was worth $50 billion. Son hasn't looked back since. Three years later, he founded the $100 billion Vision Fund to attempt to strike financial lightning again. Oh, the irony. The mainland tech sector that Ma's bold bet 21 years ago helped create is now doing increasing damage to SoftBank's 2021. President Xi Jinping's crackdown on Big Tech began with Ma in the October-November 2020 period. It included scrapping a $37 billion initial public offering by Ma's Ant Group that was to be history's biggest. Son also was a big backer of ridesharing giant Didi Global, which is now carrying out a forced