Meta Offered $100 Million Bonuses to Poach OpenAI Staff, Reveals CEO Sam Altman

According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has tried to acquire members of his team by offering signing bonuses worth up to $100 million. Altman shared this information on the Uncapped podcast hosted by his brother, Jack Altman, who is an early-stage investor.

Altman stated that Meta made substantial offers to multiple OpenAI engineers that included large bonuses and base salaries in an effort to consolidate themselves in artificial intelligence. While there were many lucrative offers, Altman said that “at least so far, none of our best people have chosen to take them.”

Meta’s Push for AI Supremacy

Altman’s comments arrived as Meta was making its own ambitious moves to expand in the AI space. Just days before the podcast aired, Meta had also announced a massive $14.3 billion for Scale AI, a data labelling startup, and hired Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang to lead a new superintelligence team at Meta, which looks like a strong move to compete with top AI players like OpenAI and Google.

Altman thinks that Meta sees OpenAI as its biggest competitor in the AI wars.

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The Battle for AI Talent Intensifies

This incident illustrates the intensifying battle for AI talent, with top engineers being attracted with offers never seen before. Meta is trying to regain its AI advantages after internal delays and departures of critical talent, and poaching from competition seems to be in its playbook.

Meta has yet to respond to the allegations.