Manus is going independent again. The AI agent startup said it will resume operating on its own after separating from Meta, ending a deal that Chinese regulators forced the social giant to unwind.
Beijing blocked Meta’s roughly $2B acquisition of the company, which builds autonomous agents that carry out multi-step tasks. TechNode reports Manus will keep serving millions of users worldwide, though it warns some accounts will be affected during the transition.
The split comes with a data cleanup. Information generated on or after December 29, 2025, the window tied to the now-scrapped deal, will be deleted between August 23 and August 24, Singapore time, to meet regulatory requirements in certain jurisdictions. Users can back up their data until early August 23.
The episode marks one of the highest-profile forced breakups of a cross-border AI acquisition. Manus had shot to prominence in 2025 as one of China’s hottest agent startups, and Meta’s bid was seen as a bet on the category’s global winner. The regulatory block, followed by the separation, shows how quickly deal math can collapse when approval conditions shift.
For the startup, independence restores its original operating model after months of uncertainty. For the broader market, the outcome is a reminder that AI acquisitions involving Chinese companies carry approval risk no amount of valuation can price in. Manus now faces the harder task of rebuilding momentum with its own balance sheet and a user base in transition.
