A 1,100-year-old poem cost Meituan’s outspoken CEO US$2.5bil

Meituan CEO Wang Xing lost US$2.5bil 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.

“He didn’t win any points with regulators by posting, but the problem is that some important facets of the business environment have now turned against him,” said Brock Silvers, chief investment officer of private equity firm Kaiyuan Capital in Hong Kong. “That may have an impact long after the poem is forgotten.”

Even before Wang’s post, state media had run regular exposes describing the plight of Meituan’s delivery drivers, helping stoke online outrage. The deaths of several delivery personnel in the rush to meet deadlines drew accusations of exploitation and sparked a debate about the treatment of gig-economy contract employees – much as it had in the US years earlier.

The criticism didn’t stop at Meituan’s core business. Its community commerce arm was among a handful of operators penalised in March for excessive subsidies, alongside units of Pinduoduo Inc and car-hailing giant Didi Chuxing. In January, it shut down its crowd-sourced health insurance service after regulators tightened scrutiny over online insurance. Even the Shanghai Consumer Council chimed in this week, blasting Meituan for a broken refunds system and misleading content on its mobile app.

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