“Ali Baba” loses $ 26 billion in minutes due to “similarity of names”!

The Chinese e-commerce group "Ali Baba", co-founded by billionaire Jack Ma, witnessed a decline in its shares by 9.4%, after the arrest of a person named "Ma" for national security reasons.

According to Chinese state television, CCTV, the suspect has been placed under "compulsory measures" since last April 25, on suspicion of "collusion with anti-Chinese forces abroad, in order to instigate secession and incite the undermining of state power."

CNN said the one-line report sparked panic selling in Hong Kong, after the news was quickly circulated by other state media and across Chinese news platforms, resulting in an estimated $26 billion loss. of the market value of "Alibaba" in a matter of minutes.

As a result, the former editor-in-chief of the state-owned national newspaper "Global Times", Hu Shigen, was quick to explain that the report was misleading because the suspect's name consisted of three letters, while the Chinese name of "Jack Ma" consisted of only two letters. 

The "Global Times" reported that the accused was born in 1985 in Wenzhou, and worked as a director of hardware research and development in an information technology company, while Jack Ma was born in 1964 in Hangzhou. 

Later, Chinese television updated the original story to match the newspaper, resulting in the company recovering most of its losses by the end of the day. 

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