Even before President Xi Jinping met with leading Chinese entrepreneurs on Feb. 17, investors began piling into technology shares, betting that a years-long crackdown on the private sector was at an end.

At the Monday meeting, Xi urged the executives to "show their talent" and pledged to support private businesses.

China’s Communist Party has a history of purging then welcoming back senior officials. Deng Xiaoping was purged three times before leading the country out of Maoism in the late 1970s. Some cadres are welcomed back years after their death.

Self-driving entrepreneur James Peng has hit billionaire status after the rally in Chinese tech firms buoyed stock in his robotaxi startup Pony AI Inc.