Jack Ma, the billionaire chairman and founder of China's ecommerce conglomerate AlibabaGroup, paid a secret visit to the White House on Tuesday, The Washington Post reported.
The newspaper said reporters had spotted Ma leaving the White House grounds with severalaides and at least two security guards.
Ma declined to comment other than to simply say his meeting with US President Barack Obamawas "very good".
A White House spokesperson confirmed that Obama had lunch with Ma but offered no otherdetails of their meeting. The lunch meeting was not listed on the US president's public schedule.
The newspaper cited White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest as saying Obama and Mahave shared a stage in Malaysia last November during the Asia-Pacific Economic Summit,where the US president interviewed Ma, then China's second-richest man, in front of a crowd ofbusiness executives.
Ma overtook China's property giant Dalian Wanda's Wang Jianlin to become Asia's richest manin April after his company's affiliate Ant Financial raised a new financing round of $4.5 billion.
That added $4.3 billion to Ma's fortune, bumping his wealth to $33.3 billion, according to theBloomberg Billionares Index.
The newspaper said reporters had spotted Ma leaving the White House grounds with severalaides and at least two security guards.
Ma declined to comment other than to simply say his meeting with US President Barack Obamawas "very good".
A White House spokesperson confirmed that Obama had lunch with Ma but offered no otherdetails of their meeting. The lunch meeting was not listed on the US president's public schedule.
The newspaper cited White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest as saying Obama and Mahave shared a stage in Malaysia last November during the Asia-Pacific Economic Summit,where the US president interviewed Ma, then China's second-richest man, in front of a crowd ofbusiness executives.
Ma overtook China's property giant Dalian Wanda's Wang Jianlin to become Asia's richest manin April after his company's affiliate Ant Financial raised a new financing round of $4.5 billion.
That added $4.3 billion to Ma's fortune, bumping his wealth to $33.3 billion, according to theBloomberg Billionares Index.
