China’s Alibaba Group has announced that Daniel Zhang will step down from its cloud business, just two months after the company said he would leave his roles as group CEO and chairman to focus on the unit.
Zhang had previously been concurrently serving in three roles, heading the group as well as the cloud intelligence unit. The unit is China’s largest cloud provider and is set to be spun off from Alibaba as part of the group’s restructuring.
In an internal letter to staff, Zhang said he had decided to step down from the cloud business in order to “channel his expertise differently.” He will continue to contribute to Alibaba by establishing a technology fund that the company will invest $1 billion in.
Zhang’s decision to step down from the cloud business comes at a time the company is facing increased regulatory scrutiny in China, and the cloud business is a major focus of the government’s antitrust investigation.
Zhang’s successor as head of the cloud business is Eddie Wu, who will also take over as group CEO. Wu is a longtime Alibaba executive who has held a variety of senior roles at the company.
The sources for this piece include an article in Reuters.
