- A letter Evergrande Chairman Xu Jiayin sent to employees has started trending on China's Weibo.
- In the letter, Xu said the real-estate developer would soon "walk out of the darkness."
- Weibo users called Xu "delusional" and accused him of cheating people of their money.
Chinese social-media users on the country's Twitter-like platform Weibo are in an uproar over a letter Evergrande Chairman Xu Jiayin sent to employees on Tuesday.
Xu, the head of the beleaguered Chinese real-estate giant, wrote the companywide letter during the Chinese Mid-Autumn festival, calling on his 123,276 employees to unite and work hard in the face of adversity. In the memo, Xu said the company would soon "walk out of the darkness."
The Chinese state-linked financial-news outlet National Business Daily posted the letter on Weibo. Within 30 minutes, Evergrande became a trending topic on the social-media platform. The Evergrande-letter topic thread, which is comparable to a subreddit, raked in more than 100,000 comments.
Evergrande has more than $305 billion in liabilities — more than any other company in the world, Markets Insider reported. Its failure to pay off its debts has prompted tremors across regional and international markets, with some analysts calling it China's Lehman Brothers moment.
Some users called Xu "delusional," citing the real-estate firm's immense debt load.
"Why don't you return the cash you borrowed?" a Weibo user called TangRui Yaya wrote in a comment, saying the letter was nonsense.
"Pretty interesting coming from a man who cheats people of money and his workers of their salaries," a Weibo user with the ID Shoudekeliandepangzier wrote, referencing rumors that the company owed tens of thousands of its workers their paychecks. "There's no reason for him to talk so much and give empty explanations."
According to a recent New York Times report, employees were seen gathering outside Evergrande's offices in mid-September demanding their paychecks and bonuses. Evergrande did not respond to The Times' request for comment.
Several Weibo users also questioned the state of Evergrande's real-estate business, seeking an explanation on what would happen to Evergrande's half-built properties, given its large debt load.
"My aunt bought a unit at one of your properties. I don't have an answer for her when she asks me what's going to happen to her apartment. It's not going to be built, is it?" a Weibo user with the ID TaHuiJingshengBingYuanle said in response to Xu's letter.
Some social-media users went as far as to call for Xu's imprisonment.
"I hope this is Xu Jiayin's last Mid-Autumn festival as a free man. He has to pay for this chaos he's caused and all the people who have suffered," a Weibo user with the ID Xiande Henhaoma wrote.
Evergrande and Xu did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.
