{"id":236171,"date":"2026-04-27T06:10:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T10:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/27\/metas-2-billion-deal-to-buy-ai-startup-manus-blocked-by-china\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T08:05:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T12:05:16","slug":"metas-2-billion-deal-to-buy-ai-startup-manus-blocked-by-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/27\/metas-2-billion-deal-to-buy-ai-startup-manus-blocked-by-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta\u2019s $2 Billion Deal To Buy AI Startup Manus Blocked By China"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meta\u2019s $2 Billion Deal To Buy AI Startup Manus Blocked By China<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/siladityaray\/2026\/04\/27\/china-blocks-metas-2-billion-acquisition-of-ai-startup-manus\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-04-27 06:10:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.forbes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Topline<\/h2>\n

The Chinese Government on Monday blocked Meta\u2019s $2 billion deal to acquire the Chinese-founded artificial intelligence startup Manus, a regulatory maneuver that comes amid an escalating fight between Washington and Beijing over advanced AI technologies. <\/p>\n

Chinese authorities blocked Meta’s $2 billion deal to acquire Manus.<\/span><\/p>\n

Getty Images<\/p>\n

Key Facts<\/h2>\n

According to China\u2019s official Xinhua News Agency, the country\u2019s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) foreign investment review arm has issued a decision to block the sale of Manus.<\/p>\n

The agency said it has also issued an order to all parties involved to unwind the acquisition. <\/p>\n

Manus launched as an AI agent, which is designed to autonomously carry out complex tasks, such as writing research reports, preparing presentation slides and building websites, last year in March.<\/p>\n

The launch was hailed by Chinese state media as the country\u2019s latest breakout AI product, following the launch of Deepseek\u2019s AI model, which shook up major U.S. tech stocks.<\/p>\n

Meta, which announced the acquisition in late December, has not commented on the Chinese government\u2019s order yet.<\/p>\n

What Do We Know About Manus\u2019 Parent Company?<\/h2>\n

According to the Wall Street Journal, early versions of Manus were developed by the Chinese startup Beijing Butterfly Effect Technology, founded in 2022. After its launch last year, the AI startup relocated its top engineers and headquarters from Beijing to Singapore, joining several other Chinese firms in doing so. Moving to Singapore allows many Chinese AI startups to circumvent U.S.-China geopolitical tensions and gain access to Western AI models and investors. According to the Financial Times, Manus\u2019 move to Singapore had initially been cleared by the NDRC, however, Meta and the startup did not inform Chinese authorities before inking the deal in December.<\/p>\n

How Did Beijing React To The Meta-Manus Deal?<\/h2>\n

In January, just days after Meta and Manus announced the deal, Chinese officials began investigating the…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meta\u2019s $2 Billion Deal To Buy AI Startup Manus Blocked By China https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/siladityaray\/2026\/04\/27\/china-blocks-metas-2-billion-acquisition-of-ai-startup-manus\/ Publish Date:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":236172,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/imageio.forbes.com\/specials-images\/imageserve\/69ef35a4555e241d1632cf70\/0x0.jpg?format=jpg&crop=4250,2389,x0,y30,safe&height=900&width=1600&fit=bounds","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-236171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236171"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236171"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":236173,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236171\/revisions\/236173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}