Jack Ma was recently replaced as a judge in the final of the TV show 'Africa's Business Heroes'.

Chinese business tycoon and Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma, who is under scrutinity from the Chinese government, has reportedly not been seen in public for nearly two months.

The business tycoon has been absent on social media as well. His last post on Twitter was on October 10.

According to a recent report by the Financial Times, Ma was recently replaced as a judge in the final of the TV show ‘Africa’s Business Heroes’.

The report further said that “his photograph was removed from the judging webpage, and he was conspicuously left out of a promotional video.”

According to the report, the final of the show took place in November, shortly after Ma “made a candid speech criticising China’s regulators and its state-owned banks”.

An Alibaba spokesperson told Financial Times that Ma couldn’t appear on the show due to a schedule conflict.

Jack Ma’s absence has come under question at a time when two of his companies – Alibaba and Ant – have come under the scrutiny of China’s market watchdog over an antitrust investigation.

China’s market watchdog had last month launched an investigation into alleged anti-competition practices by the e-commerce firm Alibaba, and also laid out a “rectification plan” for Jack Ma’s fintech venture Ant Group.

A TechCrunch report at end of December said that People’s Bank of China had summoned Ant Group for regulatory talks on December 26, announcing a sweeping plan for the fintech firm to “rectify” its regulatory violations.

Jack Ma is presently 25th in the list of the world’s richest businesspersons according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a total net worth of $50.6 billion.

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