Tsai was born in Taipei, Taiwan, to Paul C. Tsai (Chinese: 蔡中曾; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Chhòa Tiong-cheng, d.2013),[5] a second-generation lawyer, and Ruby Tsai. He has three younger siblings: Eva, Vivian, and Benjamin.[6]
The Tsai family had escaped to Taiwan as part of the Kuomintang exodus after the communists took over control of Mainland China in 1949 during the Chinese Civil War. 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.[7] Tsai enrolled at his father's alma mater, Yale University. He played for the Yale varsity lacrosse team for four years and has remained a supporter of the team.[8]
Tsai became a tax associate at the white-shoe law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell after graduation[10] and was admitted as an attorney to the New York bar on 6 May 1991.[11] 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.[12]
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.[13] 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.[14] He has become the second-largest individual shareholder of Alibaba after Ma.[12][15]
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.[16][17][18] 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.[19]
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.[24]
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.[38][39]
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. The center’s mission is to inspire students from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to seek innovative ways to solve real-world problems.[40][41]
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.[42][43][44] Tsai is a member of Lawrenceville's board of trustees.[45]
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.[46] On 20 April 2020, they donated $1.6 million of medical supplies to hospitals in San Diego.[47]
In August 2020, the Tsais donated $50 million to social justice and economic equality initiatives to support BIPOC causes.[48]
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.[49][50]
In February 2021, the Tsais made a donation to Yale University to establish the Wu Tsai Institute which will launch an ambitious research enterprise devoted to the study of human cognition.[51]