BEIJING (Reuters) - Once seemingly untouchable, Alibaba founder Jack Ma has endured a tumultuous run that saw his Chinese e-commerce giant hit with a record 18 billion yuan ($2.75 billion) antitrust fine on Saturday, resolving one key uncertainty even as others persist for himself and his business empire.

That was until his Shanghai speech triggered a backlash that led to the scuppering of a blockbuster $37 billion IPO for Alibaba financial technology affiliate Ant Group, as well as a clampdown by authorities on the e-commerce giant itself and the wider “platform economy”, which continues to reverberate.

Ma’s absence from public view became conspicuous until he surfaced for the first time in three months in late January, speaking to a group of teachers by video, which sent Alibaba shares surging.

A former English teacher, Ma co-founded Alibaba in 1999 from a shared apartment in the eastern city of Hangzhou, ultimately building a colossus that spans e-commerce, financial services, cloud computing and even supermarkets, making him China’s most famous businessman.

He was also China’s richest, until the clampdown knocked him back to fourth place on the Hurun Global Rich List published in March, although Ma and his family’s wealth still grew last year by 22% to 360 billion yuan, according to the list.

But in a February snub, Ma was left off a list of Chinese entrepreneurial leaders published by state media.

“It’s crucial for Chinese entrepreneurs to be low-key.

And don’t say anything wrong,” Edward Chen, chairman of Shanghai-based fintech consultancy China Rising Group, said in a social media video post

1 priority so that Chinese entrepreneurs can live longer.”