Person

Xiao Hong

1 entry · 27 April 2026

Xiao Hong is the founder and chief executive of Butterfly Effect, the Chinese company behind Manus, a general-purpose AI agent launched in 2025 that carries out multi-step tasks autonomously. He founded the company in 2022 and earlier built the AI browser assistant Monica; he studied software engineering at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. In December 2025 Meta acquired Butterfly Effect for a reported sum above $2 billion, only for Chinese regulators to block the deal and order it unwound in April 2026 on national-security grounds — the first use of the country's foreign-investment security review.

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  1. China blocks and orders Meta to unwind its Manus acquisition

    Beijing invoked its foreign-investment security review for the first time to reverse a completed $2bn-plus deal, months after Meta had folded Manus's team into its Singapore office.

    Money & business · Government & policy · Labs & people