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December 30, 2025, 1:45 PM
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Wall Street Journal:
Sources: Meta is buying Manus for $2B+; Manus was raising at a $2B valuation when Meta approached it; Manus CEO Xiao Hong will report to Meta COO Javier Olivan  —  The deal for more than $2 billion is one of the first in which a major U.S. tech company has bought a startup with Chinese roots
Bloomberg:
Meta agrees to acquire Singapore-based startup Manus, which makes an AI agent for SMBs; Manus said earlier in December its annual revenue run rate was $125M+  —  Meta Platforms Inc. has agreed to buy Manus, a popular Singapore-based artificial intelligence agent with Chinese roots …
Meta:
Meta says it will continue to operate and sell the Manus service, and Manus' talent will join Meta to deliver agents across Meta products, including Meta AI  —  We are excited to announce that Manus is joining Meta to bring a leading agent to billions of people and unlock opportunities for businesses across our products.
Nikkei Asia:
Meta says Manus, initially based in Beijing and Wuhan, will cut Chinese investor ties after the deal and “will discontinue its services and operations in China”
Samantha Subin / CNBC:
Sources: SoftBank has completed its $40B investment in OpenAI  —  SoftBank has completed its $40 billion investment commitment to OpenAI, sources told CNBC's David Faber.  —  The Japanese investment giant sent over a final $22 billion to $22.5 billion last week, according to sources familiar …
Rafe Rosner-Uddin / Financial Times:
Sources: Satya Nadella is focused on the increasing AI competition from Amazon and Google; Microsoft Deputy CTO Dee Templeton says Nadella is in “founder mode”  —  Software giant faces intense competition from Alphabet, Amazon and start-ups  —  Satya Nadella has overhauled …
Osmond Chia / BBC:
China's draft AI rules have measures to protect kids, like time limits and parental consent, ban gambling promotion content, and add suicide chats restrictions  —  China has proposed strict new rules for artificial intelligence (AI) to provide safeguards for children and prevent chatbots …
Themis Qi / South China Morning Post:
Zhipu AI launches a share sale to raise ~$560M in a Hong Kong IPO at a valuation of ~$6.6B, which would make it the first LLM developer listed in Hong Kong  —  The company, marketed overseas as Z.ai, eyes US$6.6 billion valuation with Hong Kong's first large language model listing
Natallie Rocha / New York Times:
Sources, PitchBook data, and news reports: the founders of Perplexity, Figure AI, Safe Superintelligence, Harvey, and others joined the nine-figure club in 2025  —  Just like past tech booms, the latest frenzy has produced a group of billionaires — at least on paper — from smaller start-ups.
Hyunjoo Jin / Reuters:
Sources: the US has granted an annual license to Samsung and SK Hynix to ship their chip manufacturing equipment to their facilities in China for 2026  —  The U.S. government has granted an annual licence to Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and SK Hynix (000660.KS) to bring in chip manufacturing equipment …

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 1:45 PM ET, December 30, 2025.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

From Mediagazer

New York Post:
Leaked letter: a group of “prominent journalists” at CBS News are preparing a petition urging David Ellison to uphold editorial independence at the network

Will Sommer / The Bulwark:
The Trump administration helps Tenet Media's Lauren Chen return to the US; she lost her visa after a 2024 indictment alleging illicit funding from Russia's RT

Zac Ntim / Deadline:
Angel Studios says Angel Guild, its program through which members are given a say on which projects the studio produces, has two million paid subscribers

More News

Financial Times:
UK-based Octopus Energy reaches a deal to sell about $1B of equity in Kraken Technologies, its tech spin-off, at an $8.65B valuation to a syndicate of investors

Earlier Picks

Vikki Blake / Eurogamer.net:
Michał Kiciński, co-founder of CD Projekt and DRM-free digital games store GOG, acquires 100% ownership of GOG from CD Projekt and signs a distribution deal
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Framework says it is raising DDR5 RAM prices to charge $10 per GB, after a price hike earlier in December due to “substantially higher costs” amid the AI boom
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