Baidu share slide wipes $2.4 billion off market value amid speculation over Xi meeting.

The Hong Kong shares of Baidu plunged on Monday, wiping $2.4 billion off its market value, after the founder of the Chinese search engine giant was not spotted at a rare meeting between President Xi Jinping and corporate leaders.

Xi hosted a symposium in Beijing with the country’s top tycoons, including Alibaba founder Jack Ma and Huawei’s Ren Zhengfei, although two sources told Reuters there was no sign of Baidu’s founder, Robin Li, attending.

nvestors and market players pay close attention to the presence of senior executives at such key meetings, where the absence of a corporate leader can trigger speculation over a company’s standing.

Shares of Baidu slid as much as 8.8% before paring losses to close down 7%. Baidu, with its market value now at HK$252.05 billion ($32.4 billion), was the biggest loser on both the Hang Seng Index and Hang Seng Tech Index.

Brokers said Baidu’s shares had been weak since the morning after it said it would fully connect its search engine to Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek and its proprietary Ernie large language model.

Source: FINANCE.YAHOO