This will undoubtedly be very confusing for Michael Bloomberg, who apparently still thinks the Chinese leader is accountable to the Chinese people.
Bloomberg said really nice things about Xi Jinping in order to protect his company’s fast-growing Chinese revenues which, at $24,000 per terminal per year and 5,500 Chinese terminals, are easily worth over $100m a year. Did he really mean Xi Jinping wasn’t a dictator? Probably not. Many would have switched subjects. But he also needed to protect his Chinese reporters and access to Chinese news stories. Since then, Bloomberg LP has come out with many negative (and positive) news stories about China. That’s the function of a business news provider - to provide an overall view so investors understand the big economic picture. But he hasn’t gone after Xi directly.