Tencent Billionaire Airs Frustration During China’s Slowdown

Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s billionaire co-founder Pony Ma shared a viral opinion piece on the economic costs of China’s strict Covid Zero measures, in a rare show of frustration after his company struggled to grow during the first quarter.

Ma, usually reluctant to step into the spotlight, re-posted the column on his semi-public WeChat feed over the weekend. From the long piece -- which called out economists, academics and even average internet users for dismissing the economic impact of Beijing’s harsh Covid measures -- Ma extracted a short segment that accused Chinese internet users of taking online service providers like Tencent for granted, saying netizens would rather see those businesses go bankrupt than conduct layoffs or let their staff work overtime.