China’s top economic planning agency has ordered Meta to walk away from its acquisition of Manus, a Singapore-based AI startup, in one of the most direct interventions Beijing has made in a cross-border technology deal to date.
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) published a brief statement on April 27, 2026, saying it had decided to prohibit foreign investment in the Manus project and had required all parties to withdraw from the deal.
The deal was valued at roughly $2 billion, with Meta announcing the acquisition back in December 2025 alongside plans to fold Manus’ agent technology directly into Meta AI.
What Manus Actually Does
Manus is a general-purpose AI agent capable of performing multistep complex work autonomously. It generated significant attention in early 2025 when its parent company, then called Butterfly Effect, unveiled the product in the weeks following the global stir caused by DeepSeek.
After a $75 million fundraising round led by U.S. venture firm Benchmark in May 2025, Manus shut its China offices, laying off dozens of employees and moved its operations to Singapore. The startup was founded in 2022 by Xiao Hong, Yichao Ji, and Tao Zhang, all Chinese engineers.
And as of March 2026, around 100 Manus employees had already moved into Meta’s Singapore offices, with CEO Xiao Hong reporting directly to Meta COO Javier Olivan.
Why China Stepped In
Chinese authorities said they would review the deal shortly after it was announced, noting that the startup still relied on Chinese talent and technology. The review was not handled by economic regulators alone. According to multiple reports, the decision to block the acquisition was elevated beyond economic regulators to China’s National Security Commission, the Communist Party body chaired by Xi Jinping that oversees national security strategy.
The Chinese government has also barred the two Manus cofounders from leaving China, according to the Financial Times. Beijing routinely bars people subject to potential investigations from leaving the country.
But Meta still thinks they can be a solution. “The transaction complied fully with applicable law. We anticipate an appropriate resolution to the inquiry,” was what a company spokesperson told TechCrunch.
The Complications of “Unwinding” a Deal
The NDRC’s order raises a practical problem that has no clear answer, at least not yet. Manus employees have already joined Meta’s AI team, and backers like Tencent and HongShan Capital have already received their cut of the deal, according to a Bloomberg report. Executing a full reversal under those conditions is far more complicated than a standard deal pullout.
However, Meta shares closed 0.53% higher on the day the block was announced, suggesting investors did not view it as catastrophic to the company’s broader trajectory. But the Manus acquisition was still positioned as a key part of Meta’s push in the AI agents space and losing it creates a real gap in the tech giant’s wider AI strategy.
What This Signals About the Larger Picture
The blocked deal shows how quickly U.S. and Chinese AI ecosystems are separating, as both Washington and Beijing now seek to maintain control of strategic technologies and prevent them from moving to the other side.
Manus’ attempt to rebase in Singapore was consistent with what other Chinese-origin companies have tried before. TikTok set up its international headquarters in the Southeast Asian country as it battled threats of a U.S. ban, and fast-fashion platform Shein established itself as a Singaporean company as it prepared for a New York IPO. The Manus situation follows the same pattern.
However, geographic relocation and restructured ownership did not change how Beijing viewed the startup’s technology and the people behind it.
This move marks one of China’s most significant interventions in a cross-border deal, one that extends well beyond the U.S.-China tensions and into the broader AI industry.
