He was also being widely ridiculed in the west over this interaction with Elon Musk in August 2019, back when Elon was still kinda widely popular.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3lUEnMaiAU

"I call AI Alibaba Intelligence", etc. (Yeah, I know, Apple stole that one.)

Reddit moment:

"When Elon Musk realised China's richest man is an idiot ( Jack Ma )"

https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/cy40bc/when_elon_mu...

I can see the extended loss of face of China (real or perceived) at the time being a factor.

Edit: So, after posting a couple of admittedly quite anti CCP comments here, let's just say I realize why a lot of people are using throwaway accounts to do so.