OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed that Meta attempted to recruit OpenAI’s AI researchers with compensation packages potentially exceeding $100 million. Altman made these remarks on a podcast with his brother, Jack Altman, published on Tuesday.
New episode of Uncapped with @sama. Enjoy 🤗 pic.twitter.com/2IxYt3B4Gm
— Jack Altman (@jaltma) June 17, 2025
Altman stated that, to date, none of OpenAI’s “best people” have accepted Meta’s offers. He suggested this was due to the belief that OpenAI has a greater likelihood of achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and becoming the more valuable company, further asserting that Meta’s emphasis on high compensation, instead of focusing on delivering AGI, would hinder their culture.
Reportedly, Meta’s recruitment efforts included attempts to hire Noam Brown, a lead researcher at OpenAI, and Koray Kavukcuoglu, an AI architect from Google. These efforts proved unsuccessful. Altman added that OpenAI’s innovative culture is a key factor in its success and believes Meta’s “current AI efforts have not worked as well as they hoped.”
Meta’s efforts to expand its AI superintelligence lab include the hiring of Alexandr Wang, former CEO of Scale AI, to lead the team and reports that Meta invested significantly in Scale AI. Meta has also reportedly hired Jack Rae from Google DeepMind and Johan Schalkwyk from Sesame AI.
Altman also described during the podcast an AI-powered social media feed, potentially competing with Meta’s existing platforms. He expressed interest in an AI-driven social media application that uses AI to deliver custom feeds to users. OpenAI is reportedly developing a social networking application internally, while Meta is experimenting with a similar concept through its Meta AI app.
