Everyone's favorite CEO/skull-model Jack Ma is likely still the wealthiest man in China, but Alibaba's stock has taken a hit this week after authorities critiqued the site for featuring too many copyright-violating items (the shock!) and Ma's uber-rich competitors are gaining ground.
Wenweipo filed a report yesterday saying solar-energy magnate Li Hejun has usurped Ma's role as #1, after several months of staggering growth in his company. There is some dispute, however, over who really is the richest of the rich.
China Daily reports that Ma is still on top, despite Alibaba's stock falling by nearly 4.5 percent on Wednesday. China Daily cites Dalian Wanda CEO Wang Jianlin as Ma's biggest potential opponent - Wang was, after all, China's richest man before Alibaba's IPO.
We can't pretend to know what goes on in the minds of billionaires (or millionaires, or the moderately well-off, for that matter) but perhaps there's nothing more frustrating than being #2. Looking at Wang's more than USD15 billion, though, we kind of doubt that.
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Li Hejun is a bit of a dark horse - his company has grown extremely rapidly over the past six months, tripling its share price since this July. Li's fortune has been amassed so wildly quickly that it actually is possible he is the country's #1 (or at least in the top few), and the accountants simply haven't caught up yet.
All things considered, we kind of like Jack Ma holding on to the top spot: he's self-made, a bit goofy and, above all others, created Taobao, that glorious city-on-a-hill stocked to the brim with shit we desperately need.
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