Let’s Make a Deal: Trump, Ma Talk Jobs

January 9, New York: Jack Ma, billionaire founder and executive chairman of Alibaba Group, met then U.S. president-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower.

The two met briefly with reporters after the morning meeting. Trump said that it was a “great meeting” and Ma called it “very productive.” They announced plans to create a million U.S. jobs by allowing small and medium-sized U.S. businesses to sell to China through Alibaba’s platforms.

Ma also told reporters that the two discussed selling U.S. commodities including apparel, wine and fruit on Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms. Ma added that both also agreed on the need for improvement of the overall China-U.S. relationship.

Alibaba, which focuses mostly on facilitating third-party sales, employed 36,446 full-time workers as of March 31, 2016, according to SEC filings.