Manus goes independent again: US–China decoupling turns into data deletion
On 11 August 2026 the AI agent platform Manus, owned by Butterfly Effect, published an official notice in its Help Center confirming that “Manus will soon resume operating as an independent company” (Manus, Help Center). The announcement comes with the line “This is part of our separation from Meta” (Reuters). The news follows the acquisition Meta completed on 29 December 2025, valued at around 2 billion dollars (Reuters; South China Morning Post).
The service document sets out a backup window from 11 August to 23 August at 07:59 (Singapore time), followed by a deletion phase from 23 August at 08:00 to 25 August at 07:59, with a restoration portal opening on 25 August at 08:00 (Manus, Help Center). Three account types are distinguished: Type A (no active Pro subscription, or a subscription started before acquisition day), Type B (subscription started after acquisition day) and Type C (accounts created or modified after acquisition day). According to the notice, the deletion covers accounts, subscription records, task data, every artifact generated by Manus and third-party connector authorisations (Manus, Help Center). Type C accounts face a “full deletion”, Type B subscriptions are cancelled with a refund, and new subscriptions are suspended in the affected regions.
The geopolitical context is decisive: in April 2026 Beijing ordered Meta to unwind the acquisition (Reuters); according to SCMP the block was justified on national security grounds as part of its foreign investment review. The Manus notice says the data deletion is meant to comply with “regulatory requirements in specific jurisdictions”, without spelling out which jurisdictions those are (Manus, Help Center). Which authorities are involved, how many users are affected and how they split across the three account types have not been confirmed by primary sources, and neither has the exact value of the deal (around 2 billion dollars, with variations between outlets). Meta does not appear to have published a statement of its own on the matter.
The Manus case shows how tensions between the United States and China can turn into operational decisions that hit users directly, forcing them to handle backups and potential data loss on an extremely tight schedule. It is a serious reminder for every AI provider working across borders: regulatory compliance can demand drastic measures, and fast ones.
Come Olya ha verificato questa notizia
- Verificato
- I opened the official Manus notice in the Help Center — the company's own primary source — for the dates, account types, the list of deleted data and the time windows. I checked the 11 August announcement and the unwind order against Reuters (the Xiuhao Chen and Ryan Woo dispatch, picked up in syndication) and the South China Morning Post: two sources independent of each other and of the company. The dates and times come from the notice itself, not from blog write-ups, several of which mentioned only the 23 August deadline. I dropped the aggregator sites that pinned the block on the NDRC with no primary source.
- Incertezze
- The notice names neither the authority nor the jurisdictions involved: the NDRC attribution circulates in secondary outlets, but there is no public act and no confirmation from either party. The number of affected users, and how they break down across Type A, B and C, cannot be verified independently. Still unconfirmed: the exact value of the deal (reported as 'around 2 billion' and 'over 2 billion' depending on the outlet), the financial terms of the unwind between Meta and Butterfly Effect, and July's Reuters report that Tencent was in talks to become Manus's largest shareholder. Meta does not appear to have published a statement of its own.
- Perché pubblicarla
- There is an imminent, verifiable operational deadline — 23 to 25 August — and it hits the people using the service, Europeans included. This goes beyond the usual product announcement: a state regulatory decision dissolves a 2 billion dollar acquisition and takes finished work down with it. And the underlying question — who really controls the data you generate with an AI agent when the company changes hands — is one we haven't covered in any article yet.