Manus Goes Independent After China Unwinds Meta’s $2 Billion Deal

Manus is returning to independent operation after China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) ordered Meta and the AI-agent company to unwind their reported $2 billion acquisition. The reversal will not affect every customer, but some users must back up their data before a scheduled deletion and temporary service interruption in August 2026.

What happened to the Meta–Manus deal?

Meta completed its acquisition of Manus on December 29, 2025. In April 2026, China’s NDRC prohibited the foreign investment and required the parties to withdraw the transaction under the country’s foreign-investment security review framework.

Manus said on August 11 that it would resume operating as an independent company. The company also said it would continue serving global users, while acknowledging that accounts in certain jurisdictions would be subject to data and service changes during the separation.

The public record describes the case as involving national security, foreign investment, and a cross-border AI transaction. China later introduced broader outbound-investment rules covering overseas deals involving Chinese investors, technology, data, and national security, including restrictions on unauthorized transfers of restricted technology, services, goods, and related data.

That does not establish that regulators publicly found a separate violation in every category mentioned in reporting, such as technology imports, exports, mergers and acquisitions, outbound investment, and export controls. The more defensible conclusion is that these are relevant regulatory areas and policy concerns—not individually disclosed findings in the Manus case.

Which Manus users are affected?

Unaffected users do not need to take action and can continue using Manus normally. Affected users should follow Manus’s backup and restoration instructions before the deadline.

The December 29 cutoff refers to 12:00 a.m. Pacific Time. The later backup, deletion, and restoration deadlines are stated in Singapore Time (SGT).

For affected pre-existing Type A/B accounts, Manus says the account itself is retained, but tasks created or updated from the cutoff onward and enabled connectors are deleted. Type C accounts—those created after the cutoff, or whose account email or user information changed afterward—face full deletion of account data, tasks, subscriptions, and associated data. Team-account treatment depends on the owner’s account classification.

Manus data backup and restoration timeline

Back up data by August 23

The backup window runs from August 11 until 7:59 a.m. SGT on August 23, 2026. During this period, affected users can continue using Manus and export account and task data through the service’s backup tools.

Users should save both account and task backups if both are offered. For Type C accounts, the account backup must be restored before the task-data backup.

Expect temporary loss of access from August 23 to 25

The deletion period begins at 8:00 a.m. SGT on August 23 and runs through 7:59 a.m. SGT on August 25. During that interval, affected users or regions may lose access to Manus, and data covered by the transition will be permanently deleted.

Manus-generated websites and services may also become inaccessible until the user restores the relevant data after the restoration portal opens.

Restore data from August 25

The restoration portal opens at 8:00 a.m. SGT on August 25, 2026. Users can restore only the backup packages they saved before the deadline; restoration is not an automatic preservation of all post-cutoff data.

The practical takeaway is simple: if an account is affected, export important work before the backup window closes and keep the backup files available for the restoration process.

What happens to subscriptions and balances?

Manus says affected paid subscriptions may be cancelled, temporarily replaced during the deletion period, or refunded on a pro-rata basis. For Type C users whose accounts are fully deleted, remaining balances and eligible assets are to be refunded automatically to the original payment method under the company’s published guidance.

What Manus’s independence means for users

For most users, the immediate change is that Manus will operate separately from Meta again. For affected users, however, the separation creates a data-management obligation and a short period without normal access.

The most important dates are:

• December 29, 2025: Data cutoff, measured from 12:00 a.m. Pacific Time.
• August 23, 2026, 7:59 a.m. SGT: Backup deadline.
• August 23, 2026, 8:00 a.m. SGT: Deletion and temporary access restriction begin.
• August 25, 2026, 8:00 a.m. SGT: Restoration portal opens.

The broader significance is regulatory: the deal shows how a company’s origins, technology, data, and cross-border ownership can remain relevant even after the business relocates or operates through an overseas entity. But the available reporting does not provide a complete public account of every legal theory behind the order. For users, the clearest and most actionable issue is the backup deadline—not speculation about undisclosed regulatory findings.