China to probe Meta’s acquisition of AI outfit Manus

Chinese authorities have signalled they’ll likely probe Meta’s planned acquisition of made-in-China AI platform Manus.

Meta announced the acquisition on December 29, 2025, and said Manus will become part of its consumer and business products.

On Thursday, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce said Beijing intends to investigate the acquisition to ensure it won’t infringe China’s export controls or foreign investment laws.

That’s an interesting move, because Manus appears to have tried to distance itself from China. As explained by Letian Cheng, a Ph.D. student at the School of Public Policy at Georgia Institute of Technology, after its early success, Manus “closed its Wuhan and Beijing offices, deleted its Chinese social media account, fired Chinese employees except for the core team, and moved to Singapore.”

Cheng labeled Manus’s actions “Identity Engineering” and suggests the company tried to decouple from China after ...