Last December’s acquisition faced near immediate scrutiny from Chinese authorities.

AI start-up Manus is going back to being an independent business after Meta’s $2bn-plus acquisition of the company was ordered in April by Chinese authorities to be unwound over national security concerns.

“We must take this step to comply with regulatory requirements in specific parts of the world,” Manus said in a blogpost yesterday (11 August). As part of these changes, it said that some of its users may lose the data they generated using Manus’s AI.

“As we look to the future, we’re already preparing a series of new features that will push the boundaries of what’s possible for general AI agents once again.”

Meta acquired the Singapore-headquartered Manus (developed by China’s Butterfly Effect) late last December as part of its continued push into agentic AI.

The acquisition faced near-immediate scrutiny from Chinese authorities, who launched a probe shortly following the deal’s announcement. Meta said that the deal “complied fully with applicable law”.

“Manus has built one of the leading autonomous general-purpose agents that can independently execute complex tasks like market research, coding and data analysis,” the Facebook parent said at the time of its purchase. Manus’s general-purpose AI agent, previewed last year, offered users capabilities similar to those of the likes of OpenAI’s Deep Research.

In February, Manus launched personal agents in messaging apps, allowing users to conduct research, structure data and make requests entirely through chat. It launched the agents on Telegram despite being owned by Meta at the time, but said that it planned to expand to WhatsApp, Line, Slack and Discord “very soon”.

The acquisition deal was formally struck down in April by China’s National Development and Reform Commission, which said that the deal was not in accordance with state laws. The country is increasingly protective of its AI technology and talent, and has been making concerted efforts to build out its own infrastructure to back the technology.

Reversing the acquisition was difficult for Meta, which had reportedly already assimilated Manus employees, executives and technology with its own at the time of the ruling.

Investors – including Tencent Holdings, ZhenFund and Hongshan – had also received their proceeds from the acquisition by the time the two companies proceeded to break up. Tencent is now reportedly set to become Manus’s largest external shareholder.

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