A 1,100-Year-Old Poem Cost This Outspoken CEO In China $2.5 Billion

Meituan CEO Wang Xing lost $2.5 billion of his wealth after he posted verses from a millennium-old poem about the misguided attempts of China's first emperor to quash dissent.

It took just 28 Chinese characters on an obscure social media platform to ignite a controversy that's rattled the country's tech industry. Meituan CEO Wang Xing lost $2.5 billion of his wealth after he posted verses from a millennium-old poem about the misguided attempts of China's first emperor to quash dissent. Wang, a usually plain-speaking engineer who enjoys literary classics, later scrubbed his post and explained he was really calling out the short-sightedness of his own industry, trying to clarify there was no implied criticism of the government. But the damage was done: Meituan shed $26 billion over two days, the biggest loser in a broader tech rout. The seemingly extreme reaction to Wang's post underscores how much markets remain on edge months after Beijing launched a crackdown against the twin pillars of Jack Ma's internet empire, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Ant Group Co. While far more succinct, Wang's utterances recalled for some investors Ma's own ill-timed comments in a public forum, which torpedoed Ant's $35 billion IPO before igniting a wide-ranging campaign to rein in the country's increasingly powerful -- and vocal -- corporate chieftains. Tellingly, most of the resultant frenzy of online speculation centered on Meituan's -- and Wang's -- fate. Regulators had only just chosen the gig-economy giant as the subject of their second major investigation after fining Alibaba $2.8 billion for alleged monopolistic behavior. While evocative, the poem offered far from conclusive evidence of Wang's intentions or thinking. Part of it read: "Before the ashes turned cold, rebellion had arisen east of the mountains." Yet it was his timing that may rankle officials already examining issues from worker compensation and benefits to its competitive tactics.