The founder and CEO of Meituan Dianping, Wang Xing has caused a $16 billion loss in market valuation for his company after he posted and deleted a historic Chinese poem with strong anti-establishment sentiment. The CEO later deleted the poem from his blog but the harm had already been done.
The 1000-year-old Chinese poem
The poem posted by the 42-year-old CEO was written during the Tang Dynasty about the burning of books by China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuang. The poem is usually interpreted as an anti-establishment clarion call.
The poem is known for stirring anti-government sentiments in China and the CEO posted it on his favourite social media handle where he has lots of followers. He later deleted it.
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Meituan, a Chinese company that aspires to be the Amazon of services is currently under investigation for breaching China’s Antitrust laws. The same challenges Jack Ma and his Alibaba group are facing.
$16 billion loss
Meituan Shares after Wang Xing made the post tumbled by 9.8%, their worst hit in 2 months, shaving off $16 billion in market valuation for the company.
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What you should know
Wang Xing is the 6oth richest man in the world with a net worth of $19.9 billion according to Forbes.
The poem was written by Zhang Jie during the ancient Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD). In it, the poet used 28 Chinese characters in four verses to harshly criticize Qin Shihuang over the first emperor’s tyrannical acts of burning books for thought control.
