Joseph Tsai

Joseph Chung-Hsin Tsai ( zh, t=蔡崇信, poj=Chhòa Chông-sìn; born January 1964) is a Taiwanese-Canadian billionaire business magnate, lawyer, and philanthropist. He is a co-founder and chairman of the Chinese multinational technology company Alibaba Group. Tsai owns the Brooklyn Nets of the National Basketball Association (NBA), the New York Liberty of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), the San Diego Seals of the National Lacrosse League (NLL), and has interests in several other professional sports franchises.

Early life and education

Tsai was born in Taipei, Taiwan, to Paul C. Tsai ( zh, t=蔡中曾, poj=Chhòa Tiong-cheng, d.2013), a second-generation lawyer, and Ruby Tsai. He has three younger siblings: Eva, Vivian, and Benjamin.

Tsai's grandfather, Ruchin Tsar, left the Chinese mainland in 1948, part of the Kuomintang exodus of millions fleeing the communists as the country's civil war ended. Tsar had been an adviser to the Kuomintang government of nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, who, in the aftermath of the war, established the Republic of China as a one-party state in Taiwan.

At age 13, Tsai was sent to the U.S. to attend the Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, where he played both lacrosse and football (inside linebacker) and was a member of Cleve House. Tsai enrolled at his father's alma mater, Yale University, in fall 1982. He played for the Yale varsity lacrosse team for four years and has remained a supporter of the team.

In 1986, Tsai earned a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in economics and East Asian studies from Yale University. He then earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Yale Law School, where he was articles editor of the '' Yale Law & Policy Review'', in 1990.

Career

Tsai became a tax associate at the white-shoe law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell after graduation and was admitted as an attorney to the New York bar on 6 May 1991. After three years at the law firm, he switched to private equity and joined Rosecliff, Inc., a small management buyout firm based in New York, as vice president and general counsel. He left for Hong Kong in 1995 to join the Swedish Wallenberg family's investment conglomerate Investor AB, where he was responsible for its Asian private equity investments.

It was in this role that he first met Jack Ma in 1999 in Hangzhou after being introduced by a friend who was trying to sell his own company to Ma. Tsai was impressed with Ma's idea to create an international import and export marketplace, as well as his charismatic personality, but it was Ma's followers and their energy and enthusiasm that ultimately convinced Tsai. Later that year he quit the $700,000-a-year job at Investor AB and offered to join Ma as a member of the founding team. At the time each of Alibaba's 18 cofounders—of which Tsai was the only Western-educated member—accepted a salary of only $600 a year. He was chief operating officer, chief financial officer, executive vice chairman and founding board member. He single-handedly established Alibaba's financial and legal structure, since no other member of the team had any experience in venture capital or law. He was Alibaba's executive vice chairman since May 2013 and became chairman of the company in September 2023. He has become the second-largest individual shareholder of Alibaba after Ma. In 2025, he remained Alibaba Group chairman. Tsai's net worth in 2022 was estimated to be US$8.1 billion. In 2025, he was ranked #8 on Forbes list of Hong Kong's 50 Richest, with an estimated net worth of $11.8 billion.

Sports ownership

In September 2019, Tsai became the owner of the Brooklyn Nets of the NBA and chairman of Barclays Center. He initially invested in the NBA team in October 2017, purchasing a 49% stake in the Nets from Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov in a deal that valued the team at $2.3 billion, with the option to buy the remaining stake of the team no later than 2021. Tsai exercised that option in August 2019, and at the same time, bought the Nets' arena from Prokhorov for nearly $1 billion in a separate deal.

Tsai's ownership in the Nets includes the Long Island Nets of the NBA G League and the Nets Gaming Crew of the NBA 2K League. In January 2019, Tsai headed a group that bought the WNBA's New York Liberty from the Madison Square Garden Company. In 2024, he sold 15% of BSE Global, the owner of the Brooklyn Nets, to Julia Koch for around $700 million. In 2025, he remained BSE chairman and Nets governor. BSE also owned operating rights to Barclays Center and the New York Liberty.

Tsai played varsity lacrosse at Yale, and is also an avid supporter of the sport of lacrosse. He is the owner of the San Diego Seals, and a co-owner of the Las Vegas Desert Dogs, both of which are professional box lacrosse teams in the National Lacrosse League (NLL). Tsai co-owns the Desert Dogs with Wayne Gretzky, Dustin Johnson, and Steve Nash.

He is also chairman of J Tsai Sports with investments in the upstart field lacrosse league, the Premier Lacrosse League and several sports media and technology companies based in North America and Asia. Tsai made his investment in the Premier Lacrosse League in February 2019, along with the Chernin Group and the Raine Group, helping fund the new lacrosse league founded by lacrosse player Paul Rabil and his brother Mike Rabil.

In March 2018, Tsai joined a Michael Rubin-led group to buy the Carolina Panthers. The bid was ultimately unsuccessful.

Tsai is also an investor in Major League Soccer franchise Los Angeles FC.

In 2022, Tsai led an investment round in Just Women's Sports, an American media company dedicated to women's sports.

In December 2024, Tsai purchased a 3% stake in the Miami Dolphins.

In May 2025, Tsai’s New York Liberty Sell Stake at Record $450 Million Valuation and more than 30 times what Joe Tsai paid for the team in 2019.

Personal life

He is married to Clara Wu Tsai, a granddaughter of , the first elected mayor of Taipei City. Tsai and Wu have three children. Tsai's family now primarily resides in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California. Tsai primarily resides in Hong Kong and spends much of his time there for business. In January 2022, Tsai paid $188 million for a penthouse at 220 Central Park South.

Political views

On 7 October 2019, Tsai weighed in after Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey posted a tweet supporting protesters in Hong Kong. In an open letter to all NBA fans on his Facebook page, Tsai explained, with reference to historical foreign invasions of China, that Morey's tweet triggered a strong negative sentiment in China against territorial losses, especially those perceived to have been caused or escalated by foreign entities, and separatist movements.

Philanthropy

In March 2016, Tsai donated $30 million to his alma mater, Yale Law School, in honor of his father to support the continuing work of the Law School's China Center and renamed it Paul Tsai China Center.

In May 2017, Tsai and his wife, through the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, made another donation to Yale for the construction, launch, and programs of the center and named it Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking.

In June 2017, the Tsais, again through the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, made a donation to his high school, the Lawrenceville School, in Mercer County, New Jersey, which was the single largest gift the school ever received. Tsai is a member of Lawrenceville's board of trustees.

In late March and early April 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Tsais donated 2.6 million masks, 170,000 goggles and 2,000 ventilators to New York. On 20 April 2020, they donated $1.6 million in medical supplies to UC San Diego to be used and shared with the region's health care systems and hospitals.

In August 2020, the Tsais donated $50 million to social justice and economic equality initiatives to support BIPOC causes.

In late 2020, the Tsais committed to contribute $50 million to Lincoln Center and the New York Philharmonic to facilitate the accelerated acoustical renovation of David Geffen Hall. On 3 August 2022, Lincoln Center and the New York Philharmonic announced the naming of the concert hall as the Wu Tsai Theater, as well as the naming of a Wu Tsai Series of concerts celebrating interdisciplinary works from diverse voices.

In February 2021, the Tsais made a donation to Yale University to establish the Wu Tsai Institute, focused on to the study of human cognition.

In July 2021, the Tsais debuted the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance and pledged $220 million to the foundation to fund teams of experts and academics from Stanford University, the University of Kansas, the University of Oregon, University of California, San Diego, Boston Children's Hospital and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

Awards

In 2017, Tsai received the George H.W. Bush '48 Lifetime of Leadership Award from Yale University.

See also

* List of NBA team owners

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tsai, Joseph
1964 births
Living people
Alibaba Group people
Brooklyn Nets owners
Canadian billionaires
Canadian chief executives
Canadian computer businesspeople
20th-century Canadian lawyers
Canadian sports businesspeople
Hong Kong billionaires
Hong Kong businesspeople
Hong Kong legal professionals
Hong Kong sports executives and administrators
Lawrenceville School alumni
New York Liberty owners
Sullivan & Cromwell associates
Taiwanese emigrants to Canada
Taiwanese expatriates in Hong Kong
Yale Bulldogs men's lacrosse players
Yale Law School alumni
Asia Game Changer Award winners
People named in the Pandora Papers
Yale College alumni