Overview
- China’s economic planner, the NDRC, issued a decision Monday that bans foreign investment in the Manus project and orders the acquisition to be canceled.
- Meta said the deal complied with the law and that it expected an appropriate outcome, while the Wall Street Journal reported the company may now prepare to abandon the transaction.
- Manus is an autonomous AI agent built by Beijing-founded startup Butterfly Effect that can carry out end-to-end tasks such as résumé screening and travel booking, and it drew notice after a viral demo in March 2025.
- The Financial Times reported in March that Chinese authorities barred Manus’s two cofounders from leaving China during the review, after the company shifted key staff to Singapore, cut China research roles, and halted service in China last year.
- Analysts say the decision aims to stop leaks of talent, technology, and capital, a stance that could chill cross-border M&A and make Singapore relocations less able to shield Chinese-founded AI startups from Beijing’s controls.