Economic Observer reporter Zhang Xiaohui and Niu Yu

On April 2, 2026, at a routine press conference of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, a reporter raised questions about the measures that China will take regarding Meta's acquisition of Manus and the related issues of the company's cross-border operations. The spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce, He Yadong, responded that the Chinese government supports companies to carry out cross-border operations and technological cooperation as needed, and relevant actions must comply with Chinese laws and regulations and follow legal procedures.

Meta is an Internet technology giant in the United States, founded by Mark Zuckerberg; Manus is a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup company founded by Xiao Hong.

At the end of December 2025, there was a rumor circulating in the technology and AI circles that Meta was in talks to acquire Manus, with a valuation of approximately $2 billion, but details were not disclosed to the public.

On January 8, 2026, He Yadong, spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, responded to Meta's acquisition of Manus at a regular press conference, stating that the Ministry of Commerce will conduct an evaluation and investigation with relevant departments on the consistency of the acquisition with relevant laws and regulations on export control, technology import and export, and foreign investment.

On March 31, 2026, reporters from the Economic Observer visited Manus' two office addresses in China and did not find any trace of him.

Explore

Manus originates from the Latin word Men et Manus.

Manus' domestic companies correspond to Beijing Red Butterfly Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Red Butterfly") and Beijing Butterfly Effect Technology Co., Ltd. Wuhan Branch. Currently, Red Butterfly is still in existence.

The legal representative of Red Butterfly is Xiao Hong. The company was established on July 3, 2023, with a registered capital of 20 million US dollars (actual payment of 4.55 million US dollars), and is 100% controlled by Butterfly Effect (Hong Kong) Limited, a Hong Kong company. The Chinese translation of the company is Butterfly Effect (Hong Kong) Company.

According to business information, Red Butterfly has a total of 7 registered employees in 2024. The registered address of the enterprise is No. 366, 2nd Floor, Block A, Building 3, No. 9 Yongfeng Road, Haidian District, Beijing.

On March 31, 2026, a reporter from the Economic Observer visited the business registration address of Red Butterfly and found that the address corresponded to a company called Wanchao Creative Factory. The business of this company is to provide services for enterprise establishment, change, and registration of addresses, and the registered address of Red Butterfly is a workstation numbered "366" in this company. At that time, there were no staff at the front desk of Wanchao Creative Factory to inquire.

The Economic Observer entered the company's internal search and did not find the specific workstation labeled "366". Several people working on this floor said that they have not heard of the Red Butterfly company.

There are public reports showing that the actual office address of the Manus team was once located in the epark park on Huayuan Road in Haidian District.

On March 31st, a reporter from the Economic Observer came to this place and was refused access when attempting to enter the office building. The staff of the park explained that this building is a shared office space with many companies inside. It adopts an invitation based entry system, which requires internal companies to apply for a QR code in order to invite strangers to enter. Due to the use of online invitation methods, there is no registration book that can display the red butterfly working here.

On the display wall on the first floor of the epark park, there are many companies that have already settled in, but there is no sign of Manus or the red butterfly logo displayed.

Founder Xiao Hong

There is another enterprise where Xiao Hong serves as the legal representative, called Beijing Butterfly Effect Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Butterfly Effect"). The butterfly effect was established on April 20, 2022, earlier than the red butterfly.

The Economic Observer reporter attempted to contact employees of two companies, Red Butterfly and Butterfly Effect, who provided two different phone numbers in their business documents, but did not receive a response.

The reporter found through visits that although Xiao Hong's two companies in China still exist, they are difficult to trace.

The official website of Manus is Manusim? After logging in, users will find a dialog box similar to a search engine. The Economic Observer reporter asked Manus where the company's headquarters is located? Manus Answer: Manus was created by the Monica team, with its headquarters located in Singapore.

Public information shows that Xiao Hong, born in 1993, is from Suichuan County, Ji'an, Jiangxi Province. He attended Suichuan Middle School for high school. Xiao Hong has been exceptionally intelligent since childhood and is known locally as a 'computer genius'. Xiao Hong graduated from the Software Engineering program at Huazhong University of Science and Technology and became a serial entrepreneur, the founder of Manus and Monica.

Xiao Hong founded Nightingale Technology (WeChat ecosystem: Yiban, Weiban Assistant) in 2015, which received hundreds of millions of yuan in investment from Tencent and ZhenFund; In 2022, Xiao Hong created Manus, a universal AI agent that can independently think, plan, and execute complex tasks, delivering complete results directly. According to the case released by the team, Manus can perform resume screening, real estate research, stock analysis, and more.

'Changes'

In July 2025, the official Manus account cleared the content posted on Weibo and Xiaohongshu. Subsequently, it was reported that the domestic team had been disbanded and relocated to Singapore as a whole. Starting from December 31, 2025, Manus will cease its services in the China region. If using a Chinese IP to access its official website, the page will display "not available in the region".

On April 1st, a reporter from the Economic Observer searched the official website of Manus and found that under the logo bar on its homepage, there was a line of black text that read "Manus has now become a part of Meta".

When the reporter clicks on the recruitment positions on the Manus official website, they will be directly redirected to the Meta recruitment page, which shows that the Manus team is recruiting positions in Singapore and California. In these job descriptions, it is also stated that 'Meta's Manus' or' Manus - now part of Meta '.

On April 1st, the Economic Observer sent an interview outline to the email address disclosed on Manus' official website regarding whether the company has completely moved out of China, rumors of the founder being under border control, and the impact on the company's relationship with Meta and business operations. As of the time of publication, no response has been received.

On March 12, 2026, Xiao Hong issued an annual open letter stating that the birth of Manus originated from an idea that seemed ordinary today: AI should not only think, but also act.

This is a bold experiment. None of us knew exactly what we could create. It wasn't until one day that Manus replicated a product - a product we had spent over a month on - that it called APIs (application programming interfaces), collected data, built websites, designed materials, and completed everything in just one hour. At that moment, I knew that the following story would unfold slowly like a butterfly flapping its wings. ?Xiao Hong wrote in the letter.