The world’s richest man met the Chinese e-commerce mogul on Wednesday.

This was confirmed through a tweet posted on Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ official Twitter account. Gates tweeted that he was to meet Alibaba founder Jack Ma on the same day in China.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s Jack Ma invited Gates to a private dinner held in Beijing. The agenda over dinner included charity works, said Gates on his Twitter account.

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The tweet read: "Got to meet with Alibaba's Jack Ma Yun in Beijing to talk philanthropy - great conversation."

Billionaire Jack Ma and Alibaba Group co-founder Joe Tsai said last April that around 2 percent of the e-commerce giant’s equity would be donated to establish personal charities.

Since Alibaba is set to go public in the US for an estimated value of US$150 billion, this would make Ma and Tsai’s charities worth roughly US$3 billion. This would also be the biggest donation in China.

Property developer Ren Zhiqiang also posted on Sina Weibo, Twitter’s Chinese clone that Ma and Gates were to meet each other over dinner. Ren was also present during the event and posted photos on Weibo.

Meanwhile, Alibaba Group also posted on Weibo last Wednesday saying that the dinner was not an official meeting. Chinese business leaders and philanthropists were also present during the dinner event hosted by Ma.

The photos posted on Ren Zhiqiang’s account showed that the founder of Mengniu Niu Gensheng and former China Merchants Bank president Ma Weihua were among those who were invited.

Alibaba Group also posted that the gathering discussed charity works in China and abroad.

Meanwhile, previous reports said that Ma and Tsai’s charities would focus on the development of the health care, culture, environment and education sectors in China.

TagsBill Gates, Jack Ma, Joe Tsai