Joseph Tsai News

The former CEO of Alibaba has resigned as head of its cloud computing business in a surprise move as the Chinese e-commerce empire wraps up a leadership reshuffle

Alibaba Group CEO Eddie Wu will take over as chief executive of Taobao and Tmall Group, Alibaba's domestic e-commerce arm, effective immediately, the company said on Wednesday. Wu, who has been Group CEO since September, also took over from previous head Daniel Zhang as the company's cloud business CEO that month. The latest appointment means Wu now leads the overall group as well as its two most important business divisions — cloud and domestic e-commerce.

Zhang quit just two months after concentrating his focus on cloud computing, raising concern over the unit's spin-off plan and possibility of discord at the top. New group CEO Eddie Wu will concurrently become acting CEO and chairman of a unit grappling with weak sales growth ahead of an initial public offering (IPO) penned for next year. «We have mixed thoughts on this news,» said Morningstar analyst Chelsey Tam in a client note. «We think this latest change was not planned back in June and there are concerns of disagreements among Alibaba's partners.» In June, Alibaba said Zhang would relinquish his group CEO role to focus on the cloud unit, the firm's number two money spinner. The Cloud Intelligence Group, valued at $41 billion to $60 billion earlier this year, is among five units Alibaba is spinning off as part of the biggest restructuring of its 24-year history. Alibaba said it will continue with its plan to spin off the cloud unit under a yet-to-be-appointed management team.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s former chief Daniel Zhang has decided to quit just months after agreeing to lead its cloud division, introducing another layer of uncertainty to China’s largest e-commerce company just as it’s navigating a complicated breakup.

NEAR Foundation, a non-profit organization responsible for developing the NEAR protocol, has partnered with Alibaba Cloud to facilitate the growth of Web3 in Asia and the Middle East. 

Alibaba has announced that crypto-friendly Joseph Tsai, currently Executive Vice Chairman, will replace eight-year veteran chief Daniel Zhang as the company's new Chairman.