China: The Ant Eater

Jack Ma, billionaire co-founder of Alibaba Group, will no longer be the controlling person of Ant Group, the Chinese fintech company he helped create. This move is reportedly intended to decrease Ant's reliance on Ma and comes in the wake of the government's crackdown on the company, which included the cancellation of its $34 billion initial public offering in November 2020. Ma will retain voting rights in an entity that controls Ant, along with nine other Ant executives and employees who will also be given voting rights. These individuals will have the power to exercise their votes independently of each other and of Ma. Ant, which owns the popular digital payment platform Alipay, has been required to make significant changes to its operations in response to the government's actions.