Did Jack Ma cry during farewell event? What eyewitnesses spotted | TOP DETAILS of Alibaba founder speech

'Jack Ma has cried' was trending on Chinese social media platform Weibo. So, did the Alibaba founder really cry? During the farewell event, Jack Ma was spotted at one point with tears welling up in his eyes as staff put on skits and sang songs to mark the occasion. Jack Ma formally left Alibaba on Tuesday and he left in style by slinging on a guitar and a rock star wig at an event for thousands of employees of the e-commerce giant he founded 20 years ago in a small shared apartment in Hangzhou city in eastern China.

During a four hour celebration in an 80,000-capacity stadium, Alibaba`s billionaire executive chairman delivered on his promise of a year ago to hand over to CEO Daniel Zhang.

Ma also told attendees that he hoped to see Alibaba shoulder more responsibility to improve society amid the sweeping changes brought about by technologies like big data and 5G. "It is not easy to be a strong company, but it is more difficult to be a good company," he said. "A strong company is determined by its commercial ability, while a good company is responsible and kind."

Costumed performers, some dancing to dubstep music and dressed in traditional Chinese dress, and singers paid tribute to Ma`s reputation for dressing up and performing at big events, entering to a parade of floats representing Alibaba divisions such as shopping site Tmall and payment service Ant Financial.

Toward the end of the ceremony, Ma, co-founder Lucy Peng, and CEO of Alibaba`s technology committee Wang Jian donned rock star-style leather jackets and wigs to perform Chinese pop songs. They were joined by co-founder Joe Tsai dressed in Marilyn Monroe style white dress and a blonde wig. Zhang, also clad in rock star garb, then delivered a solo, having earlier said that Alibaba would keep investing in areas such as cloud computing.

Ma`s exit comes as Alibaba has grown to become Asia`s most valuable listed company, with a market capitalisation of $460 billion. It employs over 100,000 people, and has expanded into financial services, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.