Meta's $1.25 Billion AI Talent Offer Rejected: Escalating War for Top AI Researchers

Abel founder claims Meta offered $1.25 billion over four years to AI hire -- 'person still said no' despite equivalent of $312 million yearly salary

Perhaps not a surprising figure, given the talk of $100 million signing bonuses. Abel founder and enfant terrible of the algorithmic age, Daniel Francis, is incredulous at the remuneration offers being punted by the likes of Meta. Earlier today, Daniel told his throng of social media followers that Meta had offered a potential hire $1.25 billion. The sum was for a four-year stint, admittedly. Despite the 10-figure lure, which would mean over $300 million a year, the potential hire didn't take the bait. The above Tweet is actually an update to one Daniel floated into the X-abyss this weekend, suggesting that Meta was fishing for a high-caliber AI auteur armed with a $1 billion incentive. Whatever the case, "Person said no, btw," Daniel added, without embellishment. To his rhetorical question about "what the hell is going on," Daniel didn't take too long to give one of his followers an answer, though. When someone raised the obvious valuation comparison, where hires are starting to attract 'IP style money,' Daniel said, "IP is in people's heads [right now]." Francis, whose startup uses AI to build police reports from body cam footage and dispatch call data, shot to internet notoriety in 2023 when he pretended to be a disgruntled Twitter worker fired by Elon Musk. After fooling multiple outlets into believing his story, he was hired by Musk to join the company. The headlining employment contract worth $1.25 billion isn't unusual, according to several posters who replied to Daniel. AI researcher Roon, who is believed to have previously worked at OpenAI, stated that he's heard of higher offers being made. "It's not that crazy when you think of it like an acquihire," he stated, in an explanation which dovetails with Daniel's highlighting of valuable IP being in folk's heads in the current AI era. After another seeming serious contribution, attempting to confirm that "The highest you've heard is regular to me," the thread began to turn into something of a farce. Posters moved on to trying to outdo each other with tales of infinite wealth, only matched by their levels of silliness. Though we must take some of the claims above with a dash of salt, there are undoubtedly some extremely lucrative employment contracts being offered to established and rising AI execs. A case of extreme remuneration in the AI field came straight from the CEO's mouth last month. In June, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that Meta was attempting to swipe OpenAI technical staff with $100 million signing bonuses. "I'm really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that," asserted Altman.

AI talent war escalates: Meta's $1.25 billion offer rejected by top researcher

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. Big quote: The race to recruit the world's brightest artificial intelligence minds is pushing compensation in Silicon Valley to once-unimaginable heights. Reports surfaced this week that Meta offered a staggering $1.25 billion over four years to a top AI prospect - an overture reportedly declined by the candidate, according to Daniel Francis, the founder of Abel and a prominent figure in AI circles. While such an offer might once have sounded outlandish, it is now emblematic of the escalating contest for talent that is transforming the tech industry. Industry insiders confirm that Meta and its competitors are offering deals that rival those given to professional athletes and Fortune 500 executives, with total pay packages often exceeding $300 million over multi-year periods for top-tier researchers. Meta's recruitment drive is part of its broader push to cement itself as a future leader in generative AI, following a $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI and the recruitment of its high-profile CEO, Alexandr Wang, to co-lead the new Meta Superintelligence Labs. Their extraordinary scarcity propels the demand for AI specialists. Estimates suggest there are only a few thousand people globally with the expertise to build the models powering the latest AI advances. As a result, the salaries and incentives on offer have surged at every level. At Meta, base salaries for senior AI research engineers have topped $440,000, even before factoring in stock and bonuses that can multiply total compensation several times over. For mid-level engineers, total packages at major tech firms can now range from $500,000 to $2 million annually. Star researchers command compensation once reserved for celebrity CEOs, and in some cases, these contracts even approach or surpass those figures. Executives, including Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, reportedly reach out to AI researchers directly, hosting meetings and interviews at private gatherings in a bid to woo the rarest talent. These extraordinary offers have prompted a response from rivals, most notably OpenAI, which has moved to expand retention bonuses, equity packages, and other creative incentives for key personnel. What began as a contest over ideas and engineering breakthroughs has become a high-stakes, high-dollar standoff. Compensation strategies once reserved for mergers and product launches are now focused on individuals, making it clear that, at least for now, the key to technological supremacy is not just infrastructure or innovation, but the few human minds capable of advancing the core of artificial intelligence.

Meta Is Breaking OpenAI $100 Million at a Time

With reportedly $300 million pay packages, Mark Zuckerberg's company is dismantling its rivals to fast-track Meta's race to superintelligence." The artificial intelligence landscape, once characterized by collaborative innovation, has dramatically shifted into an all-out war for top talent. At the forefront of this aggressive new era stands Mark Zuckerberg's Meta Platforms, orchestrating an unprecedented assault on rival OpenAI. This isn't merely a recruitment drive; it's a clear declaration of war, fueled by a staggering $300 million offer designed to dismantle the very core of its competitor. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Meta is dangling pay packages so extreme they fundamentally redefine the concept of a "signing bonus." For more than ten of OpenAI's most brilliant minds, the offer is a life-altering proposition, with up to $100 million paid out in the first year alone, potentially escalating to $300 million over four years. These are, quite literally, the most extreme financial incentives in tech history, crafted not merely to attract individuals, but to systematically weaken a rival. The ultimate goal: to poach the very minds behind groundbreaking AI systems like GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer, a type of large language model capable of understanding and generating human-like text) and accelerate Meta's ambitious dream of achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI), a level of AI capable of performing any intellectual task a human can. When contacted by Gizmodo, a Meta spokesperson referred to comments made last week by CEO Mark Zuckerberg during an interview with The Information. When asked if it was accurate that Meta was spending up to $100 million or $200 million on packages for recruits, Zuckerberg responded, "So look, I mean, a lot of the specifics that have been reported aren’t accurate by themselves. But it is a very hot market. I mean, as you know, and there’s a small number of researchers, which are the best, who are in demand by all of the different labs. So I think that it certainly is quite competitive." He further added, "There’s just an absolute premium for the best and most talented people." The impact on OpenAI has been immediate and severe, leading to what many are now calling the "$300 Million Brain Drain." As Gizmodo previously reported, OpenAI has been forced to hit the panic button internally, grappling with a significant exodus of its top researchers. The scale of Meta's poaching became so disruptive that, as Gizmodo also revealed, OpenAI reportedly had to shut down operations for an entire week. This drastic measure was taken to stem the bleeding and reorganize in the face of such aggressive talent acquisition. Key figures, the very architects of OpenAI's most advanced models, were suddenly faced with offers too lucrative to refuse, leaving gaping holes in the company's research and development teams. Now, the full extent of this pressure is clear: Zuckerberg isn't just luring away researchers; he is offering them generational wealth, fundamentally altering their financial futures. This aggressive maneuver suggests a coordinated power play aimed at hollowing out OpenAI from within. The Journal's report highlights that Meta is extending these jaw-dropping pay packages even as it struggles to fill the critical role of chief scientist within its own AI division. Despite months of outreach, the company still lacks a singular leader to spearhead its AGI ambitions. This hasn't, however, deterred Meta from attempting to acquire everyone else's top talent. This narrative transcends mere competitive hiring; it is a story of unprecedented escalation. Meta is striving to achieve superintelligence â€" machines that are smarter than humans and capable of outperforming human intelligence in virtually every field â€" by poaching the very individuals who built OpenAI's most advanced systems. The strategy appears to be to offer loyalty-level money without a clear leader or a fully defined plan, operating on the premise that if enough high-IQ individuals are gathered in one building, AGI will inevitably follow. And it might be working. The departures from OpenAI are far from over, and the internal mood has reportedly shifted from defiance to dread. OpenAI is bleeding talent at a pace that could fundamentally reshape the entire AI landscape. But Meta's aggressive maneuver raises a profound question for the future of artificial intelligence: Can you truly buy genius, or are you merely renting it? While Meta gains immediate access to unparalleled expertise and accelerates its own AI ambitions, the long-term implications are complex. The culture of a company, the synergy of its teams, and the organic development of groundbreaking ideas are not easily purchased. There's a significant risk that such extreme financial incentives, while effective in the short term, might inadvertently foster a mercenary environment rather than a truly innovative one. For Zuckerberg, this is a clear and strategic play to rapidly close the gap with OpenAI and Google in the fiercely competitive AI race. By siphoning off the very individuals responsible for the advancements that put OpenAI at the forefront, Meta aims to acquire not just talent, but invaluable institutional knowledge, proven methodologies, and perhaps even a piece of the intangible "magic" that has driven OpenAI's success. Zuckerberg's strategy mirrors how startups often chase product-market fit: if one researcher doesn't get you there, maybe the next one will. If a chief scientist cannot be secured, perhaps the field can simply be outspent until one emerges. The underlying logic is simple: build the smartest team in the world, pay them more than anyone ever has, and task them with chasing god-level AI. However, building superintelligence is a vastly different endeavor from scaling a social media application, and Meta's spending spree comes with inherent risks. Throwing $100 million at an individual is not the same as cultivating a cohesive culture, establishing a unified vision, or developing a coordinated research roadmap. Without strong scientific leadership, the lab risks transforming into a gravity well of competing egos and conflicting agendas. For OpenAI, the stakes are nothing short of existential. This battle is not just about who builds the next groundbreaking AI model; it is about who will control the very future of artificial intelligence. A mere year ago, OpenAI stood as the undisputed leader in the field. Today, Meta is leveraging its immense financial power to systematically dismantle that lead. Zuckerberg has publicly stated his ambition for Meta to be the company that "gets AGI right." This vision, it appears, begins with owning the premier talent and, by extension, breaking the institution that first cultivated it.

Meta offered AI expert a $1.25B contract, got denied

This claim was made by Daniel Francis, founder of the AI startup Abel, and highlights the escalating AI talent war Meta reportedly offered a top-tier AI expert $1.25 billion over four years, a proposal that was declined despite the substantial financial terms. This event, shared by Daniel Francis, founder of the AI startup Abel, highlights intensifying competition for specialized AI talent within the technology sector. Daniel Francis, whose AI startup Abel develops technology for generating police reports from body-camera footage and emergency dispatch transcripts, originally gained public attention in 2023. He orchestrated a hoax by posing as a disgruntled Twitter employee who had been fired by Elon Musk. This act unexpectedly led to his employment at Elon Musk's company. Francis has since begun to highlight the escalating compensation packages being offered to AI professionals across the industry. The reported $1.25 billion offer, which would have amounted to over $300 million annually, suggests a trend of increasingly large compensation packages for AI talent. In June, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed that Meta had extended signing bonuses reaching up to $100 million to attract engineers from OpenAI. However, Altman stated that despite these "giant offers," none of OpenAI's "best people" accepted the proposals from Meta. Meta is actively developing a "superintelligence" lab, a strategic initiative that involves offering compensation packages ranging from seven- to nine-figures to attract elite AI experts. Mark Zuckerberg's aggressive recruitment efforts are part of a broader strategy that includes significant investments in AI infrastructure. Meta recently declared a multibillion-dollar stake in Scale AI, a data-labeling firm, and subsequently brought its CEO, Alexandr Wang, to lead a new project within Meta. Zuckerberg, identified as the world's third-richest individual, is reportedly directly involved in recruitment processes. He has also reconfigured Meta's $1 billion headquarters to allow key new hires to be seated in close proximity to him. This organizational change underscores the emphasis on integrating critical AI talent directly into the company's core operations. Sam Altman has expressed skepticism regarding Meta's compensation-heavy approach to hiring, asserting that financial incentives alone will not suffice to recruit the most capable tech talent. He articulated a belief that Meta's strategy does not cultivate a creative, mission-driven culture, stating that "missionaries will beat mercenaries" in the long term. This perspective from the OpenAI CEO aligns with his public commitment to donate most of his personal $2 billion fortune. Additionally, an individual identified as an ex-OpenAI engineer who recently joined Meta denied receiving a $100 million bonus, labeling the rumor as "fake news."

Anthropic Co-Founder Says Meta Attempted The Same Multi-Million-Dollar Tactic To Lure His Employees, Says He Does Not Blame Anyone Who Took Those Offers, But Believes His Team Is 'Mission-Oriented'

Mega-million-dollar offers is Meta's trump card for luring exceptional talent to work on its Superintelligence Labs, with a previous employee list revealing that out of 44 people working in this division, 40 percent were formerly working at OpenAI. Naturally, the social media behemoth would leave no stone unturned as it prowls around looking to snare employees with lucrative offers, and as you can guess, Anthropic was not left out. Fortunately, the company behind Claude reportedly has people who believe in the mission rather than those looking to pocket mammoth paydays, and the co-founder explains that while he cannot blame anyone for entertaining those offers, some employees have different priorities than others. In an episode of Lenny's Podcast, Benjamin Mann, the co-founder of Anthropic, who left his job at OpenAI to pursue his own startup, says that various people have 'different life circumstances' when referring to what their preference lies in working for AI firms. He also believes that the $100 million signing bonuses offered by Meta are real, and says that the amount is low compared to the value being made. "I'm pretty sure it's real. To pay individuals like $100 million over a four-year package, that's actually pretty cheap compared to the value created for the business. We're just in an unprecedented era of scale, and it's only going to get crazier." As for why Antropic employees have yet to jump ship to Meta, Mann believes that the people currently stationed there are mission-oriented and they have given priority to how the company affects the future of humanity over how much money they can make. "I think we've been maybe much less affected than many of the other companies in the space because people here are so mission-oriented. They get these offers and then they say, 'Well, of course I'm not going to leave because my best case scenario at Meta is that we make money, and my best case at Anthropic is we affect the future of humanity." As reported by Business Insider, Mann and other individuals left OpenAI in 2020 to start Anthropic because 'safety wasn't the top priority there.' Meta has largely been successful with its poaching tactics, as it managed to recruit Apple's head of foundation models for a nice $200 million signing bonus. Then again, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman believes that this approach will create the wrong company culture.

Meta Continues To Poach AI Talent From Competitors With Lucrative Paydays Because It Is Behind In The Race, Says Google DeepMind CEO; Executive Says This Approach Is A 'Rational' One

Mark Zuckerberg has bet big on AI after his colossal failure with the metaverse and has set up Meta's Superintelligence Labs where he has hired talent from rival firms by offering them compensation beyond their wildest imagination. Looking at the sheer figures, such as a $200 million signing bonus for Apple's former head of foundation models, it would hardly be surprising for anyone to turn down this kind of money. Whether Meta has near-limitless cash to throw around, or something else, Google's DeepMind CEO believes that the social media giant's motivation for poaching talent from competitive AI entities is that they are behind in the artificial intelligence race and it needs to do something about it. On an episode of the 'Lex Fridman' podcast, Business Insider reports that Demis Hassabis, Google's DeepMind head, has a simple reason for why Meta is throwing around insane signing bonuses to new hires, while also mentioning that from the latter's perspective, it is a rational move. "Meta right now are not at the frontier, maybe they'll they'll manage to get back on there. It's probably rational what they're doing from their perspective because they're behind and they need to do something." At Meta's Superintelligence Labs, a leaked employee list revealed that out of 44 people currently a part of this division, half of them are of Chinese origin, while 40 percent have left their positions at OpenAI to join the new team. While it is completely understandable that due to the deviation of priorities, some employees will resign from their positions in search of greener pastures, others are more focused on the company's position, which, in the majority of cases, is making AI less dangerous. Anthropic's co-founder Benjamin Mann says that Meta attempted the same tactic on its employees, and while he does not blame anyone who accepted those offers, he says his members did not entertain those pocket-filling signing bonuses because they are mission-oriented. Mann also says that the $100 million offers are 'pretty cheap' because the value being created will be worth billions. Google DeepMind has a contingency in place that prevents employees from jumping ship to companies like Meta. In April, we reported that the company's staff in the U.K. are subject to non-compete clauses, meaning that they cannot work for a competitor for up to 12 months after they depart from Google, boosting their employee retention rate.

Mark Zuckerberg's 'Mafioso' Poaching Style At Meta Sparks AI Talent War -- Sam Altman Says 'Bring It On'

Enter your email to get Benzinga's ultimate morning update: The PreMarket Activity Newsletter Meta Platforms Inc. META has ignited Silicon Valley's aggressive artificial intelligence talent war through its billion-dollar hiring spree, prompting OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to welcome the competition with a defiant "bring it on" response. What Happened: During a recent podcast interview, Altman addressed accusations that Meta's recruitment tactics resembled "mafioso" moves, as noted by host Theo Von, who mentioned CEO Mark Zuckerberg's alleged poaching of tech talent across San Francisco. "I mean, you know, they want to get into the AI game. I understand it. So, and if he's going to do this, he needs to hire some people. So, bring it," Altman said, adding, "winning is fun. And I expect to win." Meta's aggressive strategy centers on its newly formed Superintelligence Labs, launched in June under former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang. The division consolidates Meta's Llama models and FAIR research to pursue artificial general intelligence. See Also: As Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg And Sam Altman Chase Nvidia AI Chips, Jensen Huang Says 'Just Call Me' -- Here's How Allocation Really Works Why It Matters: The social media giant has reportedly offered compensation packages reaching $20 million annually to lure top researchers from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and Apple Inc. AAPL. Notable acquisitions include Apple's former Foundation Models head Ruoming Pang, who joined with a reported multimillion-dollar package, and seven OpenAI researchers specializing in large language models. Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth revealed during a CNBC interview that OpenAI actively counters Meta's lucrative offers. "Sam neglected to mention that he's countering those offers," Bosworth said, responding to Altman's claims of $100 million signing bonuses. The talent war reflects unprecedented demand for elite AI expertise, with only approximately 2,000 researchers globally capable of building foundational AI models. Meta's $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI and aggressive recruiting underscores the company's commitment to AI dominance as it integrates advanced systems into Instagram and Smart Glasses platforms. Read Next: Google's Willow Chip And IonQ's $1.08 Billion Acquisition Propel Quantum Computing Market To Commercial Viability, Report Forecasts Mainstream Deployment Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Photo courtesy: Skorzewiak / Shutterstock.com Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Meta is shelling out big bucks to get ahead in AI. Here's who it's hiring

New York -- Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is on a mission for his company to be the first to reach so-called artificial superintelligence -- generally considered to mean AI that's better than all humans at all knowledge work. It's a nebulous and likely far-out concept that some analysts say may not immediately benefit the company's core business. Yet Zuckerberg is shelling out huge sums to build an all-star team of researchers and engineers to beat OpenAI and other rivals to it. Zuckerberg's recruiting spree, which has reportedly included multimillion-dollar pay packages to lure top talent away from key rivals, has kicked off a talent race within the AI industry. Last month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claimed Meta was offering his employees US$100 million signing bonuses to switch companies. And just this week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai was asked during an earnings call about his company's status in the AI talent war, a sign that Wall Street is now also invested in the competition. The stakes are high for Zuckerberg -- after Meta's pivot to the metaverse fell flat, he's reoriented the company around AI in hopes of being a leader in the next transformational technology wave. The company has invested billions in data centers and chips to power its AI ambitions that it's now under pressure to deliver on. Unlike other tech giants, Meta doesn't have a cloud computing business to generate immediate revenue from those infrastructure investments. And the company is coming from somewhat behind competitors, after reported delays in releasing the largest version of its new Llama 4 AI model. "That's the Llama 4 lesson: You can have hundreds of thousands of (GPU chips), but if you don't have the right team developing the model, it doesn't matter," said D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria. But more than anything, Zuckerberg appears to be in a circle of Silicon Valley "AI maximalists" that believe the technology will change everything about how we live and work. Becoming a leader in the space is essential to Meta and other companies whose leaders follow that line of thinking, Luria said. "For our superintelligence effort, I'm focused on building the most elite and talent-dense team in the industry," Zuckerberg said in a Threads post earlier this month. Meta last month invested $14.3 billion in data labeling startup Scale AI. Scale founder and then-CEO Alexandr Wang joined the social media giant as part of the deal, along with several of Scale's other top employees. Wang is now leading the new Meta Superintelligence Labs team, along with former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman. "My job is to make amazing AI products that billions of people love to use," Friedman said in an X post earlier this month. "It won't happen overnight, but a few days in, I'm feeling confident that great things are ahead." On Friday, Zuckerberg announced that Shengjia Zhao, one of the co-creators of ChatGPT who Meta hired away from OpenAI several weeks ago, will be chief scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs. Zhao will "set the research agenda and scientific direction" for the team, Zuckerberg said. (Meta's existing chief scientist, Yann LeCun, who has been with the company for more than a decade, will remain in his position leading the company's Fundamental AI Research team, a spokesperson confirmed.) In recent weeks, Meta has also attracted top researchers and engineers from Apple, Google and Anthropic. Multiple news outlets, including Bloomberg, Wired and The Verge, have reported that Meta has, in some cases, offered pay packages worth hundreds of millions of dollars to new AI hires. It's a sign of just how far Zuckerberg is willing to go in his quest to win the AI superintelligence race, although the Meta chief has pushed back on some of the reporting around the compensation figures. It is with that mission that Meta's new team will be working to build superintelligence. Here are some of the most prominent recent hires to the team. This list was compiled based on public statements, social media profiles and posts, and news reports, and may not be exhaustive. Meta declined to comment on this story. Zuckerberg's drive to get ahead on AI may be rooted in part in his desire to own a foundational platform for the next major technology wave. Meta lost the race to control the operating systems for the mobile web era in the early 2000s and 2010s, which Apple and Google won. In recent years, he has not been shy about expressing his frustration with having to pay fees to app store operators and comply with their policies. Meta recently partnered with Amazon Web Services on a program to support startups that want to build on its Llama AI model, in an effort to make its technology essential to businesses emerging during the AI boom. Although AI has benefitted Meta's core advertising business, some analysts question how Zuckerberg's quest for "superintelligence" will benefit the company. Emarketer senior analyst Minda Smiley said she expects Meta executives to face tough questions during the company's earnings call next week about how its superintelligence ambitions "align with the company's broader business roadmap." "Its attempts to directly compete with the likes of OpenAI ... are proving to be more challenging for the company while costing it billions of dollars," Smiley said. But as its core business continues to grow rapidly, Meta has the money to spend to build its team and "steal" from rivals, said CFRA Research analyst Angelo Zino. And, at least for now, investors seem to be here for it -- the company's shares have risen around 20 per cent since the start of this year. And if Zuckerberg succeeds with his vision, it could propel Meta far beyond a social media company. "I think Mark's in a manifest destiny point of his career," said Zack Kass, an AI consultant and former OpenAI go-to-market lead. "He always wants to point to Facebook groups as being this way that he is connecting the world ... And if he can build superintelligence that cures cancer, he doesn't have to talk about Facebook groups anymore as being his like lasting legacy."