Sam Altman claims Mark Zuckerberg is offering $100 million to poach OpenAI talent

OpenAI

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is going all in on AI, dangling sky-high pay checks to lure top researchers from rival companies — including OpenAI and Google DeepMind — to join his new “superintelligence” team. But according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the big money offers, reportedly exceeding $100 million in total compensation, aren’t working.

On a podcast with his brother Jack Altman, Sam confirmed the reports and took a few pointed jabs at Meta. “They’ve started making these giant offers to a lot of people on our team,” Altman said. “I’m really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take him up on that.” He said that Meta was offering joining bonuses of up to $100 million to get OpenAI employees on board.

Altman credited OpenAI’s strong culture and mission-driven approach for keeping his team intact, adding that his employees believe OpenAI stands a better chance at achieving AGI (artificial general intelligence) — and ultimately being more valuable. He suggested Meta’s compensation-first approach won’t foster a great culture or lead to long-term innovation.

Meta’s poaching attempts reportedly included bids for OpenAI’s Noam Brown and Google DeepMind’s Koray Kavukcuoglu — both unsuccessful. While Meta has managed to recruit some talent, including DeepMind’s Jack Rae and Sesame AI’s Johan Schalkwyk, the effort seems far from over.

The team will be led by former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, with researchers reportedly working in close proximity to Zuckerberg himself. Meta has also invested heavily in Scale AI, signalling a serious push to compete in the AGI race.

Still, Altman remains skeptical. “Meta’s current AI efforts have not worked as well as they hoped,” he said, questioning their ability to innovate. “It’s not enough to catch up — you have to actually innovate.”