Altman says Meta is trying to poach talent from OpenAI with $100M signing bonuses

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is attempting to get ahead in the AI race by offering employees of OpenAI huge signing bonuses of $100 million. At least that’s what Sam Altman now claims.

“They started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team,” Altman said Tuesday on the “Uncapped” podcast hosted by none other than his brother Jack. “You know, like $100 million signing bonuses.”

However, OpenAI CEO – whose words we probably need to take with a pinch of salt – added that Meta’s attempts to convince his staff to switch teams have so far been unsuccessful.

“None of our best people have decided to take them up on that,” said Altman, even though, of course, this could also mean that not the best people might have.

“Their current AI efforts have not worked as well as they have hoped, and I respect being aggressive and continuing to try new things,” continued Altman before stating that he doesn’t think Meta is “a company that’s great at innovation.”

Altman’s comments surfaced a few days after a Bloomberg report claimed that Zuckerberg is personally assembling a team to achieve “superintelligence,” machines that are capable of surpassing human capabilities.

Zuckerberg, who is reportedly frustrated, plans to hire about 50 people and has shifted the layout of the company’s Menlo Park headquarters to put the new AI team near his office, Bloomberg said.

According to The Information, Meta is in talks to hire former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman to join the Facebook parent's AI efforts, for example. The firm also announced a $14.8 billion investment in Scale AI last week, its second-largest investment to date.