OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has alleged that Meta is attempting to poach some of his top engineers by offering eye-watering signing bonuses — reportedly as high as $100 million — underscoring the fierce competition for top talent in the AI industry.
“They [Meta] started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team,” Altman said on The Uncapped Podcast, hosted by his brother, in an episode aired Tuesday. “You know, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that in total compensation per year.” Despite the aggressive recruitment efforts, Altman noted, “At least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that.”
Altman’s remarks spotlight the escalating rivalry between two major AI powerhouses. Meta has been accelerating its push in the generative AI space, recently forming a new superintelligence unit led by Alexandr Wang — the founder of Scale AI — after investing $14.3 billion in his data-labeling company. Wang’s appointment marks a strategic shift in Meta’s ambition to reclaim leadership in AI innovation.
“I’ve heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor,” Altman said during the podcast.
Meta’s aggressive recruitment drive comes amid reports of internal struggles, including high employee churn and delays in rolling out competitive open-source AI models. Once considered a pioneer in the field, the Facebook parent company is now striving to catch up with rivals like Google DeepMind, OpenAI, and fast-rising Chinese firm DeepSeek.
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