According to TechCrunch, Meta Platforms is acquiring the Singapore-based AI startup Manus. The deal, reported by the WSJ, is valued at $2 billion, which matches the valuation Manus was seeking for its next funding round. Manus launched just eight months ago and went viral this spring with a slick demo of an AI agent that could handle complex tasks like screening job candidates. By April, Benchmark led a $75 million round at a $500 million valuation, and the company recently announced it had signed up millions of users and crossed $100 million in annual recurring revenue. The startup was founded by Chinese entrepreneurs who initially set up a parent company, Butterfly Effect, in Beijing in 2022 before moving to Singapore this year.
Meta buys a business, not just buzz
Here’s the thing: Mark Zuckerberg is spending a staggering amount on AI infrastructure—we’re talking about $60 billion in capital expenditures. Investors are getting nervous about when they’ll see a return. So buying Manus isn’t just about cool tech. It’s about buying a proven, revenue-generating product. Manus has actual customers paying $39 or $199 a month. That’s a rarity in the world of flashy AI demos that burn cash. For Meta, this is a shortcut. They can weave Manus’s “agents” into Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, potentially supercharging their own Meta AI chatbot with something people are already willing to pay for. It’s a business move, first and foremost.
china-problem-is-immediate”>The China problem is immediate
But this deal has a massive, glaring wrinkle. Manus’s Chinese origins and early investors like Tencent and Sequoia China make it a political target. Senator John Cornyn, a Republican on the Intelligence Committee, was already blasting Benchmark’s investment back in May, framing it as subsidizing a U.S. adversary. That kind of rhetoric has bipartisan support in Washington. Meta knows this is explosive. They’ve already told Nikkei Asia that after the acquisition, Manus will have “no continuing Chinese ownership interests” and will stop all operations in China. They’re trying to surgically remove the geopolitical risk. The question is, will that be enough for regulators and lawmakers? Probably not. This scrutiny is now part of the deal’s cost.
What happens next?
So what does Meta actually do with Manus? The plan is to keep it running independently while integrating its tech. That’s smart. You don’t want to kill the golden goose by immediately folding it into Meta’s massive, slower-moving bureaucracy. But let’s be real—the end goal is to make Meta’s own AI offerings more capable and, crucially, more monetizable. Can they scale Manus’s model to billions of users without breaking it? And will the user experience survive being embedded inside a social media app? I’m skeptical. Meanwhile, the political drama is just starting. This acquisition will be picked apart in hearings. For a $2 billion price tag, Zuckerberg isn’t just getting an AI company. He’s buying a front-row seat to the U.S.-China tech cold war.
