Alibaba stock up on co-founder Jack Ma's show of support

Share of Alibaba (BABA) are gaining Wednesday after receiving a vote of confidence from the company's co-founder, Jack Ma. As the e-commerce giant undergoes a major restructuring effort, Ma has voiced his support for the current leadership, stating that the company is returning to "the highest levels of efficiency."

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This post was written by Angel Smith

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: --a stock here that is a trending ticker, and that is Alibaba. Shares moving to the upside, following a rare memo from co-founder Jack Ma. You're looking at gains of just about 2%, so bucking that downward trend that we're seeing in the broader market.

But Ma writing that the company was, quote, "returning again from an organization that makes decisions slowly back to the highest levels of efficiency. And why this is significant, is this is Jack Ma returning from seclusion for just a second time in several months here. He's trying to help morale. He's now supporting the efforts of the leaders here, with Eddie Wu and Joe Tsai.

And this is a bit of a different tone than what we heard last time he emerged, really criticizing the direction of Alibaba and some of the decisions that have been taking place. So now he's saying that he thinks Alibaba is on the right track, and we're seeing gains of just about 2%.

BRAD SMITH: What is the track, tracking all the moves in Alibaba, and which businesses they're spinning off, and which ones are splitting up. I mean, it's like trying to track Pepe Silvia at this point. I mean, it's crazy.

So all that considered, if Jack Ma, and he is really able to re-instill for a lot of the employees that are still at Alibaba, that they can have confidence in the direction, we'll see if that ultimately pays off here. But shareholders have to be wondering what in the sum of remains here for Alibaba, as they were talking last year about splitting up into six different entities, and now we're trying to figure out which ones are still going to be combined with one another, what the investors are actually getting a share of, what are they actually getting equity in, and what are the margin profiles of that, as well.

SEANA SMITH: You're talking about e-Commerce Cloud and AI.