Beijing orders unwinding of Meta-Manus deal
Beijing has a new message for US investors:
- "Keep your hands off our AI companies."
On April 27, the Office of the Working Mechanism for the Security Review of Foreign Investment – China's analog to the US Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) – ordered the unwinding of the USD 2 billion Meta-Manus deal.
ICYMI: Manus re-domiciled from China to Singapore in mid-2025, taking its team and IP with it.
- Meta acquired the company in December, and Beijing has since spent months thinking about how to claw the whole thing back.
So how is Beijing claiming jurisdiction here? We don’t yet know the answer to this question, and Monday’s announcement leaves us none the wiser.
- It's also not clear what levers Beijing has to pull if the order is ignored.
Nonetheless, Meta is reportedly preparing to follow the order and unwind the acquisition (Reuters).
Our take: Beijing is sending a two-part message.
- To Chinese startups, re-domiciling abroad won't shield you from our reach.
- To US investors, stay out of China's critical sectors – especially AI.
The bigger picture: Beijing will almost certainly broaden the foreign investment security review mechanism, so cases like Manus's are unambiguously covered.
- There are also rumors that Chinese regulators may restrict US investment in domestic AI firms, potentially mirroring US outbound investment rules that limit US capital flows into Chinese companies working on AI, advanced semiconductor, and quantum technologies (Bloomberg).