# Xiao Hong

Founder and CEO, Manus. TIME100 AI 2026, Innovators. Sold his AI agent startup Manus to Meta in a deal reported at about $2 billion, then Beijing ordered the deal unwound. ([techcrunch.com](https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/27/china-vetoes-metas-2b-manus-deal-after-months-long-probe/))

- Born: 1993, Zuo'an Town, Suichuan County, Ji'an, Jiangxi, China ([baike.baidu.com](https://baike.baidu.com/en/item/Xiao%20Hong/54085))
- Education: Bachelor's, Software engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 2015 ([baike.baidu.com](https://baike.baidu.com/en/item/Xiao%20Hong/54085))
- Career: Meta (Vice President, 2025 to now); Butterfly Effect (Manus) (Founder and CEO, 2022 to now); Minglue Technology (until 2022); Wuhan Nightingale Technology (Founder, 2015–2024) ([time.com](https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/2026/xiao-hong/), [baike.baidu.com](https://baike.baidu.com/en/item/Xiao%20Hong/54085), [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/in/red-xiao-9ab9a5165), [chinatalk.media](https://www.chinatalk.media/p/manus-chinas-latest-ai-sensation))
- TIME profile: https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/2026/xiao-hong/
- Profile: https://www.autumn.ai/resources/most-influential-people-in-ai/xiao-hong

- As a teenager in a small Jiangxi town he wrote software review columns for a Chinese tech site. ([baike.baidu.com](https://baike.baidu.com/en/item/Xiao%20Hong/54085))
- In college he built a WeChat 'drift bottle' for his campus that drew 40,000 replies in three days. ([baike.baidu.com](https://baike.baidu.com/en/item/Xiao%20Hong/54085))
- Calls himself a poor student who got by recruiting technical classmates, and tells founders to take talented classmates to dinner before graduation. ([chinatalk.media](https://www.chinatalk.media/p/manus-chinas-latest-ai-sensation))
- Turned down a reported $30M acquisition offer from ByteDance for his AI browser assistant Monica in early 2024. ([chinatalk.media](https://www.chinatalk.media/p/manus-chinas-latest-ai-sensation))
- Meta agreed to buy Manus in December 2025 for a reported $2B+, about nine months after the AI agent launched. ([time.com](https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/2026/xiao-hong/))
- In April 2026 China's NDRC ordered Meta to unwind the Manus deal; by September he was back running Manus independently and launched Manus 2.0. ([reuters.com](https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-blocks-foreign-acquisition-ai-startup-manus-2026-04-27/))