Tencent is in talks to become the largest single shareholder in Manus, the agentic AI startup whose $2 billion acquisition by Meta was ordered reversed by Beijing in April, according to a Financial Times report on July 10, independently confirmed by Reuters and Bloomberg. A consortium of Manus's original Chinese investors — Tencent, venture firm ZhenFund, and HSG, formerly known as Sequoia Capital China — are in discussions to buy the startup back from Meta at the same $2 billion valuation. Tencent would take the largest single stake but remain a minority holder overall; talks are ongoing and no deal has been signed. The development confirms that China now treats autonomous AI systems as sovereign property that cannot leave the country. Manus makes an AI agent — software that plans, searches, calls external APIs, executes tasks across third-party services, and accumulates context over time — which China's NDRC appears to have determined represents a qualitatively different national security risk from a language model. Manus launched in March 2025.