Jack Ma, the founder of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, is leaving SoftBank's board of directors. The news came Monday, when the Japanese company also announced it had suffered a record annual financial loss of $13 billion.
Ma, who has served on SoftBank's board for the past 13 years, will officially resign June 25, per a document from SoftBank.
No official reason has been given for Ma's resignation, but the billionaire also stepped down as chairman of Alibaba in September.
A SoftBank representative told Business Insider that SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son referred to Ma's resignation during the company's earnings results.
"Jack Ma, for me is my friend and comrade in my life, shared our view. In fact, six months ago or so, Jack stepped down from CEO position of Alibaba. And Daniel [Zhang] was successor as CEO, and Jack has been not on the front line of their business," Son said.
"So that was an announcement," he added. "And stepping down from SoftBank Group's Board, I believe, and he said to me actually was something that he decided on his own. That's sad, but we still keep in contact directly and right before the COVID-19, we met face-to-face every month to have dinner, to talk about businesses, to talk about lives. And we will remain friends for the rest of our life, I believe."
SoftBank on Monday posted an annual operating loss of $13 billion.
Its Vision Fund posted a record $17.7 billion loss on the back of investments including WeWork, Uber, and Oyo.
Bloomberg reported that Uber was responsible for roughly $5.2 billion of the Vision Fund's losses over the past fiscal year, with WeWork totaling $4.6 billion and the rest of its portfolio accounting for $7.5 billion.
The numbers illustrate just how rough a year it was for the $100 billion Vision Fund, which is spearheaded by Son. WeWork's valuation has tumbled 90% from its peak following its botched initial public offering, and members of WeWork's board are now suing SoftBank for backing out of an agreement to buy $3 billion of WeWork shares as part of its bailout for the company.
With the onset of the coronavirus, many of SoftBank's investments are in fresh peril — Uber cut 14% of its work force earlier this month, and Business Insider's Julie Bort reports it expects to cut thousands more jobs on Monday as mobility largely halted during the pandemic.
