China Bars Manus Co-Founders from Leaving Country Amid Meta Deal Review
China has barred two co-founders of artificial intelligence startup Manus from leaving the country as regulators review whether Meta's $2 billion acquisition of the firm violated investment rules, according to a Financial Times report. Manus CEO Xiao Hong and chief scientist Ji Yichao were summoned to a meeting in Beijing with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) this month.
Following the meeting, the executives were told they could not leave China due to a regulatory review, though they remain free to travel within the country. Manus is actively seeking legal and consulting assistance to help resolve the matter.
Meta announced in December that it would acquire Manus, which develops general-purpose AI agents capable of operating as digital employees. These agents perform tasks such as research and automation with minimal prompting. Financial terms were not disclosed, but a source told Reuters the deal valued Manus at $2 billion-$3 billion.
A Meta spokesperson stated: "The transaction complied fully with applicable law. We anticipate an appropriate resolution to the inquiry." Earlier this year, China's commerce ministry said it would assess and investigate Meta's acquisition of Manus.
📖 Read the full source: r/LocalLLaMA
👀 See Also
How to Connect OpenClaw to Ollama Remotely
A comprehensive guide on connecting OpenClaw to Ollama from another PC, exploring community insights and practical steps for a seamless integration.
Anthropic Removes Gmail Message Body Access from Claude Connector
Anthropic has removed the gmail_read_message and gmail_search_messages tools from the Gmail connector, replacing them with get_thread and search_threads that no longer return message bodies or attachment content.
Claude Code Opus Fails with Rate Limit Error Despite Available Weekly Capacity
A Claude Max subscriber reports that Claude Code Opus returns 'API Error: Rate limit reached' even though their usage dashboard shows 97% of their weekly 'All models' capacity remains unused. The issue occurs specifically in Claude Code while Opus works normally on claude.ai from the same account.
OpenClaw Launches BotsChat: A Native Chat Tool Revolutionizing Agent Communication
OpenClaw introduces BotsChat, a new native chat tool designed to enhance communication between AI coding agents. Find out how this tool can streamline your automation processes.