Jack Ma: Alibaba is no longer planning to create 1 million U.S. jobs

Jack Ma, founder and chairman of Alibaba, says the Chinese retail giant no longer promises to create 1 million U.S. jobs in the wake of an escalating trade conflict.

www.cnbc.com|Jillian D'Onfro

Ma made his original job creation pronouncement during a high-profile meeting with Donald Trump in January 2017 before Trump's inauguration as president.

"The promise was made on the premise of friendly US-China partnership and rational trade relations," Ma told Chinese news site Xinhua on Wednesday. "That premise no longer exists today, so our promise cannot be fulfilled."

3 Rules: Customer number 1, employee number 2, shareholder number 3. If the customer is happy, the business is happy, and the shareholders are happy.

My advice to everyone: Government is the same no matter where you are: love them but don’t marry them. Don’t do business with them.

If you want to do business in China, send your best people who serve your customers, and not the investors. There are a lot of gamblers and hedge fund investors who I have no sympathy for. 

It is not easy for anyone to turn around a company. I have a lot of respect for people trying to turn around a company like Carol [is]. It’s not an easy job. I think Yahoo should be more open-minded in using various ways to solve its problems.

Maybe split it (Yahoo) into smaller pieces.