Old Zuck and China just don't mesh well. Meta just announced it's starting to backtrack on the acquisition deal for Manus. Previously, Meta dropped $2 billion to acquire Manus, but now the deal is being forced to reverse. Manus employees have already lost access to Meta's internal systems, and data sharing between the two has ceased; Meta is gradually phasing out the use of Manus tools internally.

This isn't the first time Zuck has hit a wall in China. Over the years, he's been all in trying to break into the Chinese market. He even learned Chinese and made multiple trips to China himself. In terms of his Chinese skills, I'd say he's about on par with Jensen Huang. But when it comes to luck, he's lagging behind old Huang.

In 2009, Facebook got banned in China. In 2012, Zuck dropped $1 billion to acquire Instagram, only for Instagram to be banned two years later. Similarly, in 2014, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $21.8 billion, and lo and behold, WhatsApp got banned three years later in 2017 and was completely removed from the China App Store in 2024.

Now he wants to acquire a Chinese AI startup, but even that route is blocked. Maybe in his next life, old Zuck needs to be reborn as a Chinese citizen. $META