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China blocks Meta's acquisition of AI startup Manus
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-blocks-foreign-acquisition-ai-startup-manus-2026-04-27/ https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-blocks-fore...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj0v0gr2yz7o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj0v0gr2yz7o
- hereme888 6mo agoPoor Meta. AI is really just not working out for them.
- giancarlostoro 6mo agoFunny when you consider the world owes a lot of AI advancements to both Meta and Google, their open releases really did shift things, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, especially for China, which as far as I know were not releasing as much in AI as they have been beforehand. I remember when Meta released Llama originally people were speculating about it, but it wound up producing a lot of projects that used it, I'm sure some in China. I know that Perplexity has its own custom model on top of Llama that they use for their default model, and its pretty darn good.
- henry2023 6mo agoWasn’t Llama a leak that got so popular meta decided to change their whole approach? I was working at Google at the time. Before Llama, releasing weights was not even worth a discussion.
- giancarlostoro 6mo agoNot sure, but open weights have had their effects. For example, look at Wan 2.2 the last open weights Wan release, still the most powerful Video inference out there, to the level of quality it provides, unfortunately, it went closed source, but before they did, the community had built all sorts of tooling and LoRas on top of it. Nothing comes close for video a year later. Back to llama though, look at all the open models people run offline through their Macs. It definitely had a net positive.
- calebkaiser 6mo agoIf I'm remembering right, it was weirder than that, as Llama's originally release strategy was sort of bizarre. You did have to apply for access, but if you met their criteria (basically if you were the right profile of researcher or in government), you got direct access to the model weights, not just an API for a hosted model. So access was restricted, but the full weights were shared. I believe that the model was leaked by multiple people, some of which didn't work at Meta but had been granted access to the weights.
- cma 6mo agoI don't think it was much of a leak, there was no significant verification--I think .edu email approved automatically. It was probably just there because copyright law related to it was more uncertain then, but they had stronger fair use case with an academic/research gate on it.
- inkysigma 6mo agoI'm curious how this view fits in with BERT or the T5 release which prior to the current LLM craze were the de facto language models for use in pretty much any tasks. Was this a position that would've otherwise grown without the llama release?
- overfeed 6mo ago> Funny when you consider the world owes a lot of AI advancements to both Meta and Google Funny how ByteDance kicked both their asses so hard at RecSys algos, they had to go back to the drawing board to meet the newly redefined expectations on the quality of short-form video recommendations.
- thesmtsolver2 6mo agoDid they though? That is the lore. You can’t really compare recommender system performance across different populations and products. Unlike common benchmarks for LLMs.
- culi 6mo agoAlso Chinese companies are now single-handedly keeping the future of LLMs open-sourced. DeepSeek being the pinnacle of this. Not only do they publish weights and code, but they publish detailed papers detailing their approach
- hirako2000 6mo agoFunny that Manus already shows "by meta" along with the logo pretty prominently.
- laweijfmvo 6mo agoThis is interesting. I wonder what inside information China could also be after that Manus might have after integrating with Meta.
- hirako2000 6mo agoCould be, but if that's how it worked out they would have rather let the acquisition be, to gather much more.
- wxw 6mo ago> After a $75 million fundraising round led by U.S. venture firm Benchmark in May 2025, Manus shut its China offices in July, laying off dozens of employees. It then moved its operations to Singapore. > It was not immediately clear on what grounds China was seeking the annulment of a deal involving a Singapore-based company and how, if at all, a completed acquisition transaction would be unwound. > Manus' two co-founders, CEO Xiao Hong and chief scientist Ji Yichao, were summoned to Beijing for talks with regulators in March and later barred from leaving the country, five sources familiar with the matter said. Will be interesting to see how this plays out.
- stego-tech 6mo agoI suspect this is more of a warning shot to others attempting the same playbook ("Singapore-washing", as I've heard folks call it): the state is watching, and shifting geopolitics means it's in their interest to retain successful talent and entities at home rather than let opposition have them. If anything, I'm genuinely surprised it took them this long. America's been doing this for decades without much in the way of pushback, so China must feel very confident in its position to use such tactics.
- aesch 6mo agoI don't know if America has done anything quite like this. The example I'm looking for is where a company starts in the US but leaves and incorporates outside the US and then the US attempts to block acquisition by a foreign company. Also, the enforcement mechanism while vague seems un-American. America might tax the company upon exit but it wouldn't hold the founders hostage in America. If you have examples I'd be curious.
- rzerowan 6mo agoFamously back in the day Grindr , which had a plot point in the Silicon Valley series . Probably more obscure ones that havent been heard of outside software in the Hard tech space like MotorSich (Ukranian) was being courted by Chinese investment got blocked due to US pressure. And very recently the whole TikTok fiasco.
- zonkerdonker 6mo ago>not immediately clear on what grounds China was seeking the annulment of a deal involving a Singapore-based company and how, if at all, a completed acquisition transaction would be unwound. Interesting. I wonder what sorts of threats China could make to back up this demand, or if this is more of a warning for future acquisitions in the space.
- some_random 6mo ago"Your families live here", maybe "We have shadow police stations across the world", the playbook is well established
- stego-tech 6mo agoI mean, they're just cribbing what America did, and what the British Empire did before that. It's a disgusting playbook, but it's also an effective one if you're a state trying to exert control over important players or entities.
- catgary 6mo agoI think you need to give some concrete examples, considering the US happily let its companies offshore a lot of work to China over the years, and Chinese funds own large chunks of American companies.
- stego-tech 6mo agoOkay! * The US and UK propped up the Iranian Shah to help western oil interests: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état * US Export Controls basically handcuff anyone of import involved in creating anything of value to the state: https://www.investopedia.com/u-s-export-restrictions-6753407 https://www.investopedia.com/u-s-export-restrictions-6753407 * We continue to embargo Cuba instead of letting it succeed or fail on its own merits - while also controlling their own land for a Black Ops prison and having attempted repeatedly to assassinate their leaders or create coups: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_Cuba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_... * Our centralization of global finance and status as a reserve currency lets us dictate global policy on everything from Intellectual Property to National Defense, meaning companies generally have to "play ball" or the host country will incur penalties * That time we overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemala because they imposed radical ideas like a minimum wage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27état https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27état * And that time we overthrew the democratically-elected socialist government in Chile to prop up exploitative labor practices and resource extraction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27état https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27état I can go on, but really, Wikipedia is right there. If you're looking for a specific analogue to "we kidnapped CEOs and demanded a foreign company unwind their merger", I don't think I can provide that right away; however, if instead you're looking for examples of "country used threats and force to foment an outcome favorable to its domestic policies", well then, boy howdy are there tons and tons of examples out there just a cursory search away.
- some_random 6mo agoCan we finally acknowledge the obvious Singapore-washing that Chinese companies have been doing for years or are we going to keep pretending?
- arjvik 6mo agoelaborate on the problem, for those of us that this is not obvious to?
- some_random 6mo agoChinese company has an issue being a Chinese company for international legal or optics reasons, relocates to Singapore while still being controlled by Chinese nationals or all-but-Chinese-Nationals. Bytedance is a great example. Russian companies do the same thing with Switzerland, see Kaspersky.
- dublinstats 6mo agoThey could just as well relocate to California for that matter. The question is are they still controlled by the PRC. China doesn't allow dual citizenship (like other Asian countries), so people might legitimately want to work abroad while keeping their native passport.
- some_random 6mo agoYes but also no, being in the US is a meaningful exposure in a way that a Singapore HQ isn't
- OsrsNeedsf2P 6mo agoThis will be awkward, given the acquisition is already complete
- KaoruAoiShiho 6mo agoManus is saved, 2 billion is such an undervaluation considering much worse companies like minimax is valued at 30 billion.
- quleap 6mo agoManus is just a joke. MiniMax develops one of world's leading open source LLMs. You comparison is an insult to MiniMax.
- KaoruAoiShiho 6mo agoNo I think the best agent with hundreds of millions in ARR should be worth more than the 15th best model company with tiny revenue. ur the joke.
- outside1234 6mo agoWhat leverage does China have here to enforce this? Meta doesn't do business in China. Can't they just give them the middle finger?
- umeshunni 6mo agoMeta absolutely does business in China. e.g. https://www.metacareers.com/v2/locations/shenzhen/?p[offices][0]=Shenzhen%2C%20China&offices[0]=Shenzhen%2C%20China https://www.metacareers.com/v2/locations/shenzhen/?p[offices... https://www.metacareers.com/v2/locations/shanghai/?p[offices][0]=Shanghai%2C%20China&offices[0]=Shanghai%2C%20China https://www.metacareers.com/v2/locations/shanghai/?p[offices... https://www.metacareers.com/v2/locations/hongkong/?p[offices][0]=Hong%20Kong&offices[0]=Hong%20Kong https://www.metacareers.com/v2/locations/hongkong/?p[offices... I also assume, like most advertising platforms, they cater heavily to the China export market.
- dublinstats 6mo agoI don't think their social networks are allowed in China. From your link it looks like they might do R&D for Oculus in China (but may not even be able to sell it there due to the data-collection tie in required). Not sure what you mean by catering to the export market. b2b sales would be just as restricted as sales to consumers.
- umeshunni 6mo ago> b2b sales would be just as restricted as sales to consumers. They're not. A significant part of ad spend by the likes of Temu, AliExpress, Shein and other Chinese exporters are on Meta's platforms: e.g. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/31/metas-continued-rally-could-hinge-on-fortunes-of-temu-and-shein.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/31/metas-continued-rally-could-...
- ls612 6mo ago[flagged]
- efields 6mo agoThe… hands of fate?
- orange_joe 6mo agointeresting. Manus is nominally a Singapore based company and should be immune to these actions. Tiktok argued that it was headquartered in Singapore with a Singaporean CEO. breaking singapore’s fig leaf might prove problematic in the long run.
- nerdsniper 6mo agoThe founders are Chinese citizens, and pressure was applied to the founders personally. Thus Singapore was given room to save face re: sovereignty.
- rtpg 6mo ago> After a $75 million fundraising round led by U.S. venture firm Benchmark in May 2025, Manus shut its China offices in July, laying off dozens of employees. It then moved its operations to Singapore. The company itself was based in mainland China less than 12 months ago.
- culi 6mo agoYeah if an American tech firm had been working in the US for 5 years and then tried to close all US offices down and move its IPs and tech to a different country so that it can sell out to Alibaba or Bytedance, I'm sure the US would react in the same exact way. The sinophobia in this thread is ridiculous. Whether you agree or disagree with what China is doing, nothing is happening that wouldn't also happen in the US.
- bit-anarchist 6mo agoWhat sinophobia? I haven't seen anyone here talking shit about chinese indivuduals. Or are they trashing China (the nation-state)? If we count that as xenophobia, is any unjust criticism of USA "americanphobia"? If so, fine, but I'd rather not anthropomorphize megacorps with monopolies on violence.
- 6mo ago
- _fat_santa 6mo agoBesides the fact that the founders are in China and are barred from leaving, is there anything that prevents Manus/Meta from just telling the CCP to kick rocks? Sure they can object to it or claim they are "blocking" the sale, but is there really anything they can do considering that Manus is no longer within their jurisdiction?
- reissbaker 6mo agoI think it's precisely the fact that the founders live in China. The CCP can make them... kick rocks... for the rest of their lives. Generally speaking this seems bad for Chinese companies, though. They were able to raise capital from the West by running out of "Singapore"; I think basically every investor will have significant pause investing in Chinese-national-owned startups after this, "Singapore-based" or not.
- kccqzy 6mo agoThe CCP is known to be very aggressive. Even if the founders acquired Singaporean citizenship (which is way easier for ethnic Chinese people than for other races), the CCP would have taken them hostage if they just set foot in China like for a business trip. They can invent a crime and subject them to a trial with Chinese rules. What can Singapore do? It’s a tiny country that tries to walk a tightrope by simultaneously maintaining good relations with both China and the U.S.
- jorblumesea 6mo agoSo China is just claiming that anyone who is ethnically Chinese should be pressured? Manus is in Singapore and has no direct connections to China physically and financially. SG offices, SG product, SG founders with family on the mainland.
- baq 6mo agoFirst time interacting with a totalitarian government?
- cyanydeez 6mo ago[flagged]
- maxglute 6mo agoManus started in China, built by Chinese talent, hence all their work under purview of PRC export control laws, PRC merely closing loophole on SG washing. They haven't even done nuclear option like banning PRC from working in US AI like US has done in PRC semi.
- 627467 6mo ago1. Not SG founders 2. China already claims jurisdictional reach on anyone (chinese national or not) when their national interest is involved.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- TesterVetter 6mo ago[dead]
- maxglute 6mo agoThis just PRC finally applying their version of US export controls, i.e. PRC gets to control PRC originated algos, same argument as TikTok. The founders aren't held "hostage", they're under investigation for violating export control and national security laws. PRC hinted signalled pretty clearly they would use art12 (catch all clause) of export control laws and offshore affiliate rules (to address Singapore loophole) before Manus deal closed - Manus ignored loud hints. The difference is PRC wasn't super judicious in enforcing AI related export controls (especially since agent development new hence art12), US would have ensured this control list tech wouldn't leave US territory via foreign product rule / CFIUS / BIS. PRC gave pretty clear signals to Manus what was going to happen hoping they'd unwind on their own, but they didn't so now they're going to eat shit. PRC still haven't gone the step up to ban PRC strategic talent from working in US like US has for PRC semi. Don't be surprised in 5-10 years US has to hire PRC workers with obfuscated identities like PRC dealing with US/TW talent in PRC EUV. Plenty more room how these things can escalate depending on how serious PRC starts to treat dual use AI.
- andsoitis 6mo ago[flagged]
- maxglute 6mo agoOh no taking passport for flight risks during investigation for basically treason... down with... every government in the world. Anyway that said, with respect to PRC export controls "barring people" is also not wrong conclusion persay. For those down in the thread wondering what PRC can do about it. PRC doesn't have US 80+ years tier of extraterritorial instrument, i.e. banking. But PRC does have fuckload of talent, i.e. 50+ of global AI, soon 50%+ of global semi. Seems like talent is going to get controlled according to new rules on countering foreign states unlawful extraterrestrial jurisdiction measures from state council a couple weeks ago. IIRC decree 834/5. There's a reason it was front loaded before Manus announcement. TLDR make it illegal for Chinese nationals to work in any US/foreign company that PRC puts on malicious entity list. In theory, this cuts off huge % of PRC talent willing to work for targeted companies, unless companies spend $$$ guaranteeing green cards, because PRC nationals working in these companies or affiliating with individuals (including Manus founders if their scheme worked out), i.e. Facebook, would basically be committing treason. A fuckload of greencards because need to buy out all stakeholders, i.e. it kills poaching entire PRC teams / companies, any PRC talent funnel dead for affected companies. Nevermind coercing families, many competent PRC talent has millions in RE/assets, if not personally then via inheritance, all gone. Ask where US AI or tech would be without tons of tier1 PRC talent. Of course some will argue this good thing (derisking etc).
- qaK127 6mo agoObviously. With the US first controlling Venezuelan energy supplies to China and then cutting of Iranian energy supplies to China (as well as to the EU), what do you expect? China isn't as stupid as the EU, which just says thanks and would you perhaps like to blow up another pipeline? Hormuz will stay closed by the pirates. LNG terminals are already built in Alaska to supply the Asian "allies", whose economy the US also ruins. If the EU had any backbone, it would cut off the US from ASML.
- kubb 6mo agoSomehow this is about the EU?
- verdverm 6mo agoThe world order is early on in a major restructuring. The EU is a major region and on a path to greater self reliance and determination. This is good for the world imo (as an American)
- Lucasoato 6mo agoEU is on the right path, but the problem is that we’re going way too slow. Check out the “28th regime” that standardizes incorporation for European companies, it was announced back in November, and it won’t see the light this year probably. We can’t wait any second more, we need to act now not to become totally irrelevant and it might even be too late.
- hasbr12 6mo agoUS controlling the world's energy routes goes back to the Suez Crisis, where it wrestled the canal from Britain. Reagan blew up a Russian-German pipeline. The Nord Stream sabotage was at least condoned and cheered on. Now the closure of Hormuz was first provoked and then co-opted by the US. Yes, this is about the rest of the world.
- DeathArrow 6mo ago>If the EU had any backbone, it would cut off the US from ASML. ASML depends on a lot of US technologies.
- benwen 6mo agohttps://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/27/business/china-meta-manus-ai-deal.html?unlocked_article_code=1.eFA.2ZPR.H9i-KMkksB8w&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/27/business/china-meta-manus...
- LarsDu88 6mo agoChinese government blocks stupid American from overpaying for Chinese technology thereby missing out on free taxable revenue....
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- wg0 6mo agoTit for tat. US administration thought they would contain China. Now Deepseek v4 is running on their home grown chips. US companies lost that hardware revenue and dependency instead.
- dyauspitr 6mo agoDeepseek v4 is still pretty far behind the frontier models though.
- BobbyJo 6mo agoIt's really hard to tell. Almost all the models have the benchmarks in their training data, which pushes us into the realm of basing model capability rankings on vibes. I think the OSS models tend to do worse on things outside their corpus, but Deepseek specifically has done insanely good work on efficiency and scaling, which is verifiable in a way capabilities are not.
- Levitz 6mo agoWeird, why does China want GPUs then? Also, regarding that "tit for tat", how large of a "tat" is due, regarding decades of corporate espionage?
- wg0 6mo agoOh it's okay check what US did with the TikTok. Corporate espionage isn't the only factor behind China's rise. It is relentless hardwork.
- Levitz 6mo ago>check what US did with the TikTok. A specific case in which the US demanded a tiny fraction of what China does systematically, orders of magnitude worse. Okay. Didn't even take that into account to begin with but that's an even larger "tat" then I guess. Do they pay you extra for the gratuitous glazing?
- mullingitover 6mo ago> The Chinese government’s intervention in the transaction drew alarm among tech founders and venture capitalists in the country who were hoping to take advantage of the so-called Singapore-washing model, where companies relocate from China to the city-state to avoid scrutiny from Beijing and Washington. If the US is going to treat AI technology as a strategic issue upon which it's going to play the national security card, it's not really valid to start the pearl-clutching when China does the same. Seems like Manus and Meta thought they were going to be clever, and that China wasn't going to play any any of the cards they were holding. Even GPT-2 could've told them that was a dumb idea.
- culi 6mo agoFinally some sense. I am quite confident that the US would be reacting the exact same way if the situation was flipped.
- timothyshen123 6mo agoI really wonder what the employee status gonna be like. It has been quite some time now, I think Meta and Manus are deeply binded lol. As a Manus user, I am liking the product. Sad to see social criticism of them and to see this news.
- qwertyuiop_ 6mo agoThere has been a lot of discussion here on why the founders were detained and whether this is normal for other countries. All one has to do is look at what Chinese Communist Party has done to Uyghurs to understand how far they will go to neutralize opposing thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_Chin...
- d4ust 6mo ago[dead]
- culi 6mo agoThat's not any more relevant than if I were to bring up the US' own concentration camps. In August of 2024, the ACLU released a report on these camps called "Resistance, Retaliation, Repression: Two Years in California Immigration Detention". Here's some of the issues it highlighted: - forced labor in order to afford to eat. The $1/day "Voluntary Work Program" is the only way you're gonna get enough food to live. And if you refuse to work or try to protest, ICE doesn't have to give an excuse to send you into solitary confinement. CoreCivic sells this labor to companies - extensive use of solitary confinement often for "minor disciplinary infractions or as a form of retaliation for participating in hunger strikes or for submitting complaints" - dozens of documented deaths from forced labor and medical neglect No doubt these issues have only gotten worse since the publication of this report. https://www.aclunorcal.org/publications/resistance-retaliation-repression-two-years-california-immigration-detention/ https://www.aclunorcal.org/publications/resistance-retaliati... The US holds 25% of the world's prison population. It is one of the few countries in the world where someone's voting rights can be taken away for being inprisoned. Prisoners also have to pay "rent" but don't have a way of making money. If they do ever get out, they're saddled in debt for the rest of their lives—increasing the chance they go right back in to this for-profit scheme
- maxdo 6mo agoWho cares after openclaw ?
- burnerRhodov2 6mo agoChina will succeed, despite china.
- freakynit 6mo agoThe governments need to keep their noses away from private companies, unless private companies turn to directly, or indirectly, limit their own competition using nefarious practises. Politicians need to be kept in check, or else, they become dictators. If not, then it's just a matter of when, not if, that that transition happens.
- chinadata 6mo agoYes, so the US need allow ASML sell to China.
- freakynit 6mo agoIdeally, yes. The thing is such actions from govt.'s usually start with the right intent and in a very limited scope... but, with time, both gets traded away for having more political control over entire ecosystem, thereby, allowing corruption to creep-in, and on a more extreme level, illegal arrests and account freezes. The issue is always the human nature: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
- itopaloglu83 6mo agoDidn’t the Dutch government take control of China-own chip maker as well?
- nsoonhui 6mo agoI don't think this has much to do with export control-- note that Manus, as impressive as it is, is still a wrapper around fundamental western models--, rather it has more to do with capital controls. China has been trying to stop large scale outflow of businesses and individuals for quite some time, due to local politics concern. What Manus was doing, achieving successes first in China then setup a nominal shell company in Singapore, seems like a textbook case of flight (润）, which China is trying to prevent.
- bluegatty 6mo agoThis is a good answer. The export controls have a strategic purpose - and Manus fits squarely within the spirit of the controls and maybe not the technicality of the rules. Consider that if this were a much smaller project, they'd run afoul of the same technicalities but would they be sanctioned? Probably not. It's very fair to make comparisons as to the arbitrary application of these rules in various regimes, lord knows 'TikTok' has been treated like a Pinata, but still, it'd be naive to think that this is about 'some rule'. It's about the 'Grand Game'. Should note: the 'nominal shell' stuff I think is fair game for all nations to be scrutinizing. All of this 'Caribbean Island Incorporation' I think violates 'the spirit' of commercial laws and practices anyhow. It'd be one thing if Manus was 'really' a Singapore company but that it's truly just 'some paperwork' gives legitimacy to the 'onshore rules' being applied.
- xbmcuser 6mo agoTiktok was about only one thing and that was Israel losing the narrative war as unlike most of western social media which was deranking and censoring showing of Israeli atrocities to the world Tiktok was not.
- bluegatty 6mo agoThat was the straw that broke the camels back but it was always a big concern.
- HappyPanacea 6mo ago
- ergocoder 6mo agoThis must sting really hard for the founders. Almost a billionaire. Only 1 step left. Then, it's blocked by China.
- itsjoaki 6mo agowe all heard about manus, but who is actually using it?
- whytai 6mo agothe manus founders moved the entire company, researchers, and IP out of china to singapore. most of the researchers and business is still there, but unfortunately the founders wives/parents and family stayed in china. ultimately this is why they had to come back when the PRC summoned them after the meta acquisition. sad day to be a chinese founder.
- amai 6mo agoDictatorships do what dictatorships do. China is a dictatorship. Don't be surprised. Stop doing business with dictatorships.
- catcowcostume 6mo agoShould countries also stop doing business with the US? With the UK? Countries act the same way to preserve the interests, it's just that you agree with the Western narrative.
- bdhe 6mo agoI think it is easy to argue that the Chinese govt exerts pressure in "unique ways" - see Jack Ma's 180 in attitude after house arrest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ma#During_tech_crackdown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ma#During_tech_crackdown Is there one CEO in the US or UK with a similar story?
- input_sh 6mo agoNo, and that's exactly the problem. There should be plenty of CEOs facing direct consequences for their actions in "the west" too.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- adithyan-rk 6mo agoWhat does "annulment" even mean once the deal has closed? The weights, IP, and engineers are already inside Meta. Beijing can force the founders to sign whatever they want, they're physically there, but you can't claw back code that's already been integrated. This is a signaling move. The real impact is on the next deal: any China-origin founder eyeing a Singapore or Delaware flip now has to price in "state summons you home" as a real risk. India had a softer version in 2022–23 when RBI rules pushed PhonePe, Groww, and Razorpay to reverse-flip back before IPO.What does "annulment" even mean once the deal has closed? The weights, IP, and engineers are already inside Meta. Beijing can force the founders to sign whatever they want, they're physically there, but you can't claw back code that's already been integrated. This is a signaling move. The real impact is on the next deal: any China-origin founder eyeing a Singapore or Delaware flip now has to price in "state summons you home" as a real risk. India had a softer version in 2022–23 when RBI rules pushed PhonePe, Groww, and Razorpay to reverse-flip back before IPO.
- pdntspa 6mo agoEvery time I see the word "Manus", I can't help but think of MST3000 making fun of "Manos: The Hands of Fate"