In September 2018, Ma announced that he would retire from the company he founded and the source of his wealth, internet merchandiser Alibaba, in order to pursue educational work, philanthropy, and environmental causes.
[9] The Foundation, along with the Alibaba Group, has also donated similar materials to Iran, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Japan and South Korea.
[12] For instance in Nigeria a senior health official, Abdulaziz Abdullahi, said that the country had received 100,000 face masks, 1,000 protective gowns and 20,000 test kits.
[13] On 18 March 2020, the JMF published Handbook of COVID-19 Prevention and Treatment, a detailed 68-page book edited by Tingbo Liang that documents the clinical experience obtained at the First Affiliated Hospital of the Zhejiang University School of Medicine in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
Beneficiaries include the U.S., Russia, Israel, and Iran; as of April 2020, Ma has declined to donate to any countries such as Honduras and Haiti that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan.