Jack Ma urged Alibaba to “correct its course” and hailed rival PDD Holdings Inc., which has been swiping market share

China’s most famous entrepreneur broke years of silence about Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. with a call to arms for employees, after years of government actions and strategic missteps that cost the e-commerce giant its place as leader of the country’s tech industry.

Jack Ma, the once-outspoken billionaire who stayed out of public domain after clashing with Beijing, took to an internal message board to urge Alibaba to “correct its course” and hailed rival PDD Holdings Inc., which has been swiping market share. Ma expressed confidence the 220,000-plus staff can return to their success of the past with determination and hard work.

Every great company is born in a winter, Ma wrote in response to a staff post. The people willing to reform for the future, and the organizations prepared to pay any price and sacrifice, are the ones that are truly respected.

Once the most valuable company in China, Alibaba has fallen way behind games and social media leader Tencent Holdings Ltd. Alibaba’s market valuation has slipped from over $850 billion three years ago to nearly $190 billion. It is in danger of being eclipsed by PDD, an e-commerce upstart that reached $176 billion with a successful expansion abroad.

It is not clear whether Ma has been given explicit approval from authorities to resume a more public role — or whether he simply could not stay silent any longer about the company’s strategy given its many problems. Ma gave up his role as chief executive before Alibaba’s IPO in 2014, leaving day-to-day management largely to his deputies since then.