Wholesaler e-commerce giant in China Executive Chairman and co-founder Jack Ma (net worth $36 billion) gestures during a ministerial in Argentina in 2017. While attending conference he expressed his intentions and future plans, Ma plans to devote his time to philanthropy in education after he will retire from the e-commerce giant he founded in 1999, according to the NY Times its very eccentric for a Chinese executive to retire so young. But Ma on Thursday-told Bloomberg TV that he was mulling an early retirement similar to Bill Gates’ early exit from Microsoft. When asked if his retirement could happen as soon as this year, Ma smiled and said” You will know very soon”