Ma Huateng, also known as Pony Ma, is the chairman and CEO of Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings.
Tencent’s popular social messaging app WeChat has nearly 1.4 billion monthly users.
Known at home for mobile games such as battle game Honor of Kings, Tencent is also one of the largest videogame publishers globally and has acquired a stake in U.S. videogame company Epic Games.
It has also invested in electric car maker Tesla and music-streaming service Spotify, which in turn has a stake in its Tencent Music.
Ma led research and development of Internet paging system development at China Motion Telecom Development before starting Tencent in 1998.
Being one of “Fortune world’s greatest leaders”,[11] Ma is known for his low profile personality as compared to fellow Chinese businessman and Alibaba founder Jack Ma‘s outgoing personality.
Ma’s first job was with China Motion Telecom Development, a supplier of telecommunications services and products, where he was in charge of developing software for pagers. He reportedly earned $176 per month. He also worked for Shenzhen Runxun Communications Co. Ltd.