[bit-anarchist]

As another comment mentioned, comparing "employees trying to selling GPUs to an unauthrorized country" and "CEOs selling a company built on national resources to an outside country" is spherical cows levels of comparison.

[maxglute]

Another wrong comment doesn't make being wrong less wrong. CEOs/persons trying to sell controlled technology unauthorized for export by origin country. They are direct legal analogs.

[bit-anarchist]

Wrong how? It is your comment that is missing the point. The contention isn't whether USA has export control (you are the one who brought it up), it's whether USA has actually prevented a company from being sold overseas by detaining their owners.

Are you trying to push a red herring?

[8note]

> it's whether USA has actually prevented a company from being sold overseas by detaining their owners.

notably china isnt doing this either: they are barring exit, not detaining, and the reason for barring exit was not reported, so its a stretch to say that its to prevent the sale of the company overseas.

The US:

- makes broad claims of jurisdiction - has export control, which is listed in the article as a potential reason for blocking the sale, and - restricts exit from the country when it wants to make sure certain people are available to chat

I dont see whats so exciting about pushing on this specific case. There's an error of, "who's tried to export controlled IP by selling their company to a foreign adversary?"

I dont see what's so exciting about this case that the US definitely absolutely wouldnt take a pretty similar approach to china - bring the CEOs to testify before congress and keep them in the country til the government is satisfied. What's so out of the ordinary that makes this interesting? This is the stuff that goes into work compliance courses.

you might instead want to answer which high tech defense contractor for the US has successfully been bought out by say, iran, china, north korea, or russia, that the US has given the OK on?

I expect there's a lack of data either way. It doesnt come up because people generally move their companies to the US, not out

why is this the hill to die on?

[bit-anarchist]

Although it's true that there's no stated direct link between barring the CEO's exit and Manus's deal, it's not that much of a stretch to say that, specially given China's priors.

Still, I'll concede since that's not what's relevant to me. I'm more curious about the claim that USA would do the same. I can see congress calling the CEO to testify, but keep them in the country until the government is satiafied? How? AFAIK congress has no such power, and the executive may try, and they might be struck down by the courts.

While US has export controls, this wouldn't be a company incorporated, or running, for that matter, in the US (so the Supermicro already doesn't qualify). It would be a company, say, incorporated in the UK. Even if the company started in the US, this, AFAIK, would be unprecedented. Hence the relevance of showing a prior case.

And, make no mistake, I'm not here to say USA is better than China, but these "China is just doing what USA does" claims are getting ridiculous.

[maxglute]

US export controls prevent companies from selling controlled tech. If US companies tried o circumvent then they would absolutely be denied, if they did secretly anyway, against, the law of course they'll likely have passport surrendered, i.e. exit ban if flight risk.

Like this isn't complicated, the difference is Manus was full blown retarded enough to transparently circumvent PRC export controls after PRC closed loopholes and politely signalled them to stop, which they didn't, i.e. they broke actual export control laws. Like Manus didn't try to sell, they fucking sold, sign and dotted, despite being told not to, because its against export control laws.

Even US companies rarely this blatantly dense. Americans getting exit banned for selling controlled hardware is LESS serious then what Manus tried to do, i.e. lesser (relative) export control crimes in US getting same treatment.

[reissbaker]

What are you talking about? Here are the concrete differences:

1. The U.S. has had a long-standing, extremely public policy that you Cannot Sell Nvidia Chips to China since 2022. Supermicro is an American company (based in San Jose, California), and they sold chips to China from 2024-2025, and they got caught, so they were arrested.

2. Manus founders created... an agent harness? And their company was incorporated in Singapore, not in China. And after they sold their Singaporean company to Meta, China decided that selling Singaporean agentic software "violated export controls" (and even the CCP representative couldn't list which supposed control it violated), and detained them all in China and is attempting to force the Singaporean company to unwind the sale.

These are not really comparable. The Supermicro folks are running a company in America and knew ahead of time, for years, that what they were doing violated American export controls. In the case of Manus, they weren't a Chinese company, no one knew they were supposedly violating unwritten export controls, and China decided post-hoc to detain them all and attempt to force the (Singaporean!) company to unwind the sale.

Quite simply this has never happened in corporate America. America is very friendly to corporations and you'd have to be wildly, knowingly in the wrong to get arrested for an M&A deal.

[maxglute]

No they're exactly the same, except Manus more retarded than Nvidia and Supermicro.

1. US had wiffle waffle export control policies on what TIER of compute that was exportable. When policies were unclear and compute threshold shifted, Biden admin signalled blank understanding of "presumption of denial" in interregnum while policy figured out exact controls. Nvidia stopped exporting until clarity. That's what due diligence / compliance means.

2. Manus created AI algo in PRC and hence under PRC purview. Fired their PRC team and thought incorporating in Singapore was loophole to transfer PRC controlled tech to US for fat paycheck. PRC was signalled before sale finalizes the Singapore loophole was not some lawfare gotcha to circumvent export controls. This was PRC version of presumption of denial. Ultimately PRC gets to decide if Manus technology CREATED IN PRC is exportable, and under what conditions. PRC company in Singapore fine, using Singapore to transfer to US... not fine. The amount of signals Manus got was similarly clear. PRC writings were talking about art13 of PRC export controls being triggered long before sales. Manus did the retarded and illegal (treasonously) thing and decided to go through with sale and forced PRC hand, when due diligence meant you know, not. AKA Manus did a supermicro but more egregious.

America so friendly they have to export control PRC... prevent US talent from working in PRC semi amirite. Oh wait, turns out when it comes to national security / duo use tech both sides are wildly not business friendly and can play the same geopolitical game. This hasn't happened in America, because quite frankly US businesses are not retarded enough to flaunt US national security instruments due to US gov extraterritorial reach. Manus thought they can do so with PRC who has less extraterritorial = reach, and now PRC slapping them as example. Also no one's arrested yet, just exit ban for ongoing investigation. But would not be surprised if they do end up getting arrested, because they wildly, knowingly in the wrong.

[reissbaker]

The U.S. restrictions on Nvidia compute were clear and extremely widely reported on for years prior to Supermicro's sales. That's why Nvidia created special Chinese-market versions of their GPUs, e.g. the H800 and H20, which Supermicro was free to sell at the time (although eventually those were banned as well, which was similarly widely reported on and well known). The rest of your post is, similarly, basically nonsense.