It seems like only yesterday that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was learning Mandarin while pushing staffers to read Xi Jinping’s tome “The Governance of China” — all in a failed bid to get Facebook inside the country’s Great Firewall, of course.
Yet for all the love the Meta CEO has given the People’s Republic, China just doesn’t seem to love him back. PRC regulators have held firm in denying Facebook access to Chinese consumers despite Zuckerberg’s best efforts, and President Xi even once declined to name the Meta CEO’s newborn baby.
Zuckerberg’s latest rebuff came at a cost: $2 billion to be exact. Earlier this week, regulatory authorities in Beijing moved to block Meta’s acquisition of the Chinese-linked AI startup Manus, CNBC reported. Manus is a Singapore-registered company with roots in the Chinese mainland, focusing on AI agents capable of complex, multi-step task execution.
Meta had previously signed a $2 billion takeover plan with the AI firm in December, which the Chinese government is now asking both parties to withdraw.
According to CNBC, the Chinese government’s intervention is broadly seen as a message that “Singapore-washing” — where Chinese companies relocate to Singapore to avoid scrutiny from both US and Chinese financial regulators — will not be tolerated, no matter who’s doing the scrubbing.
It could be a messy fix, as the Manus team “is now deeply integrated into Meta, running, improving and growing the Manus service and will continue to make it available to the millions of people who enjoy it,” a Meta spokesperson told CNBC.
Regardless, it’s clear that despite years of glad handing from the billionaire, Beijing isn’t interested in giving Zuckerberg any kind of special treatment — and for someone with Zuckerberg’s outrageous wealth and power, that’s gotta sting.
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