Tencent Holdings’ billionaire co-founder Pony Ma shared a viral opinion piece slamming China’s weakening economy under stringent Covid-19 Zero measures, in a rare show of frustration after his company struggled to grow during the first quarter.
“This is a really vivid description,” the Tencent chief commented, according to a screengrab of a WeChat post that Bloomberg News verified with people in Ma’s WeChat circle. He went on to quote the article: “But of course, if their meal orders come 10 minutes late, they would be cursing the delivery guys.”
Ironically, the former newspaper editor had also commented on Zhang’s column after it was widely shared across the Chinese social media sphere — he called it sensationalist clickbait. Ma expressed no further judgment on the overall article himself. But the fact that the boss of China’s most valuable company shared the post made waves on the Chinese internet. Representatives for Tencent didn’t respond to requests for comment.