ICYMI: OpenAI CEO claims Meta tried to poach his staff with $100m offers

Sam Altman, chief executive officer (CEO) of OpenAI, says Meta offered signing bonuses as high as $100 million to poach talent from his company.

Altman spoke during an episode of the Uncapped Podcast hosted by Jack Altman, his brother, on Tuesday.

“They started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team,” Sam said.

“You know, like $100 million signing bonuses.”

However, he added that the recruitment attempts have been unsuccessful so far, as none of OpenAI’s employees have accepted Meta’s offers.

Altman also criticised Meta’s approach to artificial intelligence (AI), saying the company’s efforts have yet to deliver the expected results.

“Their current AI efforts have not worked as well as they have hoped, and I respect being aggressive and continuing to try new things,” he said.

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

The CEO’s statement comes amid Meta’s recent intensified efforts on AI.

According to Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Meta, has invited several AI experts to join the company’s superintelligence lab and contribute to a reboot of Llama, its open-source large language model.

Meta is also reportedly in talks to hire Nat Friedman, former GitHub CEO, and Daniel Gross, his investment partner, to strengthen its AI team.