Manus AI’s ‘De-China’ Playbook Is a Trap
Tech startups have mostly failed to recast their national identity.
Manus AI cannot distance itself from China.
Photographer: Roccardo Milani/AFP/Getty Images
When Chinese startup Manus previewed an artificial intelligence agent earlier this year, it went mega-viral. It came on the heels of DeepSeek, when global excitement over China’s AI breakthroughs was at a fever pitch, and nobody wanted to miss out on the next surprise hit.
Now, Manus is doing everything it can to sever any ties to the mainland. It relocated its headquarters to Singapore, and its three co-founders have made the move abroad as well. Butterfly Effect, the company behind Manus, reportedly eliminated all its China-based jobs last week. It has also scrubbed content from domestic social media platforms Weibo and Xiaohongshu (also known as RedNote), despite maintaining an active presence on X. Users in China trying to access the site this week were met with the message that it’s “not available in your region,” a departure from a previous memo stating that the Chinese version was under development.