June 2, 2013 -- Pony Ma Huateng, CEO of Tencent, became a hot search on Weibo today due to a screenshot of his chat record on wechat, which caused heated discussions among industry insiders and netizens.

According to the chat transcript, Ma reposted an article titled "Talk about layoffs" in his wechat group and said:"The subsequent environmental challenges are still quite big. You should tighten your formation, do some spare consideration, and cope with some unexpected challenges. Do not be overly optimistic."

The screenshot of the chat quickly went viral online, prompting Zhang Jun, Tencent's public relations director, to say in a post on wechat that he was not talking to the company.

To further clarify, Zhang posted on his wechat moments, "[Ma Huateng] had a chat in the external group,My intention was to discuss with the management of an investment company about safety, cost reduction and efficiency improvement. However, when it got out, it became more and more distorted.Thought it was an inside talk.

It is worth noting that, according to Tencent's Q1 financial report of this year, on March 31, 2022, Tencent had 116,213 employees; On December 31, 2022, the number was 108,436, and on March 31, 2023, it dropped to 106,221.

According to the data,Tencent has lost almost 10,000 employees in the past year.