Meta CEO Zuckerberg’s $100 Million Bait Gets No Bites—What’s Keeping OpenAI Talent Loyal?

AI Talent Wars Heat Up as Meta Tries to Lure OpenAI Engineers With $100 Million Offers

The battle for top artificial intelligence talent has reached an intense new level, with tech giants offering athlete-like deals to secure key researchers.

Meta, led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is reportedly offering signing bonuses as high as US$100 million to employees at OpenAI — but none have bitten so far.

Meta’s Ambitious AI Drive Sparks Unmatched Bidding War

As Meta races to build its newly formed “superintelligence” team, it's pulling out all the stops.

The company recently hired Alexandr Wang, founder of data-labelling firm Scale AI, to lead the initiative and backed it with a hefty US$14.3 billion investment into his former company.

The move signals Meta's desire to close the gap with AI leaders like OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic.

But it’s the staggering compensation offers that have caught the tech world’s attention.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed on ‘Uncapped’ podcast, hosted by his brother Jack Altman,

"They (Meta) started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team. You know, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that (in) compensation per year."

Despite the enormous pay packages on offer, Altman says no core team members have jumped ship.

“At least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that.”

Why OpenAI Staff Aren’t Taking The Money

The generous offers from Meta appear to be falling flat, and Altman believes he knows why.

He said,

“There’s many things I respect about Meta as a company, but I don’t think they’re a company that’s great at innovation.”

Altman pointed out that culture may be the deciding factor in talent retention.

A cultural risk arises when professional motivation shifts predominantly towards financial gain, potentially diminishing the intrinsic value and purpose of the work itself.

From his point of view,

“I think we understand a lot of things they don’t.”

OpenAI’s internal belief, according to Altman, is that it has a better shot at achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI) — and potentially becoming the most valuable company in the space.

That vision seems to be winning over loyalty, even in the face of Meta’s lucrative offers.

Zuckerberg’s Personal Push For AI Supremacy

Reports suggest that Zuckerberg has personally taken the reins in recruiting top-tier AI talent, including attempts to hire OpenAI’s Noam Brown and Google DeepMind’s Koray Kavukcuoglu.

Both declined.

Meta has, however, succeeded in attracting some high-profile names such as Google DeepMind’s Jack Rae and Sesame AI’s Johan Schalkwyk.

Zuckerberg’s vision for AI now includes direct collaboration with new hires — some will reportedly work in physical proximity to the Meta CEO as part of the team.

Whether that closeness translates into results remains to be seen.

OpenAI Eyes Social Media, Raising the Stakes

Adding more tension to the rivalry, Altman hinted that OpenAI is exploring AI-powered social networking — a space where Meta currently dominates.

He floated the idea of a platform that delivers feeds tailored by AI to reflect user interests, instead of traditional algorithmic recommendations.

Meanwhile, Meta is experimenting with similar ideas through its Meta AI app, although some users have reportedly encountered confusing interactions with its system.

AI Power Grab: Innovation Or Paycheque?

This battle between Meta and OpenAI exposes a deeper question facing the tech industry: should top minds in AI chase the highest bidder or back the vision they believe in?

Meta is betting on money and speed.

OpenAI is betting on culture, mission and long-term potential.

In a world where billion-dollar offers can be turned down, the real value may lie not in the paycheck — but in where AI talent believes the future is being built.