These reported efforts by Meta to lure OpenAI employees highlight the escalating competition for top engineering talent to advance AI model development. This comes amid Meta’s endeavors to establish its superintelligence division to rival its competitors.
The race for AI talent has intensified, with elite researchers being pursued like professional athletes, under the assumption that individual contributions are pivotal for a company’s success.
“They (Meta) began extending substantial offers to numerous individuals on our team,” Altman mentioned during an episode of the Uncapped podcast released on Tuesday, hosted by his brother. “For instance, $100 million signing bonuses, and even higher annual compensation.”
“Thus far, none of our leading talent has opted to accept those offers,” Altman noted.
Meta did not provide an immediate comment when approached outside of regular business hours, and Reuters could not confirm the claims.
“I’ve heard that Meta considers us their primary competitor,” Altman stated.
His remarks follow Meta’s recent $14.3 billion investment in data-labeling startup Scale AI, along with hiring its CEO, Alexandr Wang, to spearhead its new superintelligence team.
Once a recognized frontrunner in open-source AI models, Meta has faced staff attrition and has delayed the introduction of new open-source AI models that could compete with rivals such as Google, China’s DeepSeek, and OpenAI.
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