Don’t be fooled by the latest billionaire meeting at Trump Tower after which “great” progress in American job creation is claimed: Alibaba won’t create 1 million jobs in the U.S. as promised, at least not directly.

On Monday, Alibaba BABA, -1.90% Chief Executive Jack Ma became, after a 40-minute meeting with Trump in the newly minted politician’s gold-plated tower, the most recent CEO to tout job creation. There’s no better music to President-elect Donald Trump’s ears than pledges from CEOs to keep jobs in the U.S. or to create new ones. Trump based much of his campaign on ensuring U.S. jobs are kept away from foreigners and aren’t outsourced to other countries, and he’s gone to great and highly publicized lengths to prove his election is the reason for jobs coming to or staying in America.

“ Alibaba CEO Jack Ma’s assertion that he’s going to create a million new jobs in the U.S. by helping small businesses sell products and services on China is a stretch. ”

However, Ma’s assertion that he’s going to create a million new jobs in the U.S. by helping small businesses sell products and services to China is a stretch. The Chinese e-commerce giant is merely upping its own investments to appeal to U.S. small businesses, providing them with incentives, such as user data and logistics capabilities, in hope that more American brands will sell items on its e-commerce sites. The increased demand for those U.S. goods from the Chinese middle class will prompt, it hopes, increased hiring as U.S. brands expand to meet the heightened demand.

These aren’t promises of traditional labor-force “jobs” that many Americans dream of when they listen to Trump’s rhetoric on job creation. They’re merely part of a publicity stunt that plays on Alibaba’s previous announcements to expand its presence outside of China, particularly in the U.S.

It’s like saying Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -2.80% , Etsy Inc. ETSY, -2.14% and eBay Inc. EBAY, -5.05% have all created millions, if not billions, of jobs through their respective marketplaces that connect third-party sellers to buyers. Sure, they’re all platforms connecting sellers and buyers, which are necessary tools in a modern economy in which even tiny merchants wish to reach potential customers across the globe. But their actual full-time, with-benefits workforces are much tinier. Alibaba has fewer than 36,500 global employees despite notching in as one of the most valuable Chinese companies, with a market capitalization of $230 billion, according to FactSet. Amazon has 230,800 employees, while eBay has 11,600 and Etsy has fewer than 1,000.

Alibaba's Jack Ma meets with Trump, vows to create U.S. jobs

The U.S. has long been an area of rising focus for Alibaba, particularly as the Hangzhou-headquartered company’s stock continues to trade 20% below an all-time high reached more than two years ago. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published on June 15, 2015, a week before Trump announced his candidacy for the presidency, Ma said Alibaba was focusing on the U.S. market, and he said helping U.S. brands connect to Chinese consumers would “create American jobs and increase U.S. exports.” Alibaba also specifically chose the U.S., rather than its home base of China, for its initial public offering.

From the archives:Seven things to know about Alibaba’s huge IPO

On Monday, with cameras capturing Ma and Trump in the marbled lobby of Trump Tower following their meeting — which they both characterized as “great” — Ma said he’s going to work with the incoming administration to support “1 million small businesses” in an efforts to sell products in China and Southeast Asia. Despite referring to that “1 million” figure as representing “U.S. jobs” in an Alibaba blog post, neither Ma nor Trump elaborated on whether any of these would be full-time corporate jobs stationed in the U.S., or whether they’d simply be an outgrowth of the third-party network of sellers on Alibaba’s e-commerce sites, many of whom likely also sell products on other e-commerce sites, such as Amazon and eBay.

An Alibaba spokesperson later confirmed to MarketWatch that these aren’t corporate jobs.

This, of course, isn’t the first time Trump has claimed responsibility for job creation without providing details on what those jobs are or offering transparency as to where they’re coming from.

In November, Trump took credit for United Technologies Corp.’s US:UTX decision to keep 1,000 Carrier factory jobs in the U.S. following CEO Greg Hayes’s meeting with president-elect in his namesake tower. That necessitated a decade’s worth of corporate tax incentives to be funded by Indiana taxpayers.

In December, he took credit for Sprint Corp.’s US:S decision to bring 5,000 jobs back to the U.S. from other countries, even though Sprint conceded the jobs were part of a previously announced commitment by Japan’s SoftBank Group 9984, -1.29% to invest $50 billion in the U.S. and create 50,000 new jobs.

SoftBank, which owns a controlling stake in Sprint, had announced that multibillion-dollar investment in the U.S. after a meeting with Trump earlier in December — however even that pledge was tied to an earlier announcement. SoftBank had struck a deal with Saudi Arabia in October to create a $100 billion tech fund with a focus on the U.S., according to the Wall Street Journal.