Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is aggressively recruiting AI researchers for his superintelligence team — reportedly offering compensation packages exceeding $100 million. But according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the offers are falling flat.
As Meta ramps up its artificial general intelligence (AGI) ambitions, it has turned to high-profile poaching attempts. The company tapped former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang to lead its AI superintelligence team, and reportedly made offers to top talent at OpenAI and Google DeepMind.
Targets included OpenAI’s lead researcher, Noam Brown, and Google’s AI executive, Koray Kavukcuoglu, but both declined. Meta did manage to recruit some notable names, such as DeepMind’s Jack Rae and Johan Schalkwyk from Sesame AI.
Speaking on a podcast with his brother, Jack Altman, the OpenAI CEO confirmed Meta’s lavish offers, but emphasized they’ve had little success. Altman said:
They’ve started making these giant offers… $100 million signing bonuses, more than that in compensation per year. I’m really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have taken him up on that.
Altman argued that OpenAI’s mission-driven culture is more appealing to top researchers than Meta’s high salaries. “I don’t think they’re a company that’s great at innovation,” he added, suggesting Meta’s monetary focus lacks the depth needed for breakthrough AI work.
Meta recently took a 49% stake in Scale AI Wang’s former company and is working to expand its AI team amid stiff competition from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic.
Meanwhile, Altman hinted at a new frontier: OpenAI may launch its own AI-powered social media platform, focused on personalized content curation beyond traditional algorithmic feeds. Meta is also experimenting in that space through its Meta AI app, but early user confusion suggests a rocky start.
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