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  • Recruitment War Intensifies
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Meta poaches three OpenAI researchers in AI talent war

Meta has recruited three researchers from OpenAI's Zurich office to join its artificial intelligence team, marking the latest escalation in Silicon Valley's battle for top AI talent. Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai, who helped establish OpenAI's Swiss operations last year, confirmed their departure to work on Meta's new "superintelligence" efforts.

The hires underscore CEO Mark Zuckerberg's personal campaign to close the gap with AI rivals through aggressive recruitment, amid reports of compensation packages reaching $100 million for top researchers. The move comes as tech giants compete to develop artificial general intelligence that can match or exceed human capabilities across multiple tasks.

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Meta's AI Talent Grab: A Play for Dominance in the Generative AI Era
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Meta Reportedly Hires Away 3 Researchers From OpenAI
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Recruitment War Intensifies

Meta's talent acquisition extends beyond the Zurich trio. The company also hired Trapit Bansal, a key contributor to OpenAI's o1 reasoning model who previously worked with OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever12. According to The Wall Street Journal, Zuckerberg has been personally contacting researchers via WhatsApp and hosting them at his homes, coordinating efforts through a group chat called "Recruiting Party"1.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman publicly addressed Meta's recruitment tactics during a podcast appearance, claiming the company offered "$100 million signing bonuses" to his employees3. However, Beyer disputed the reported bonus amounts on X, calling them "fake news"1. Altman maintained that "none of OpenAI's best people" have accepted Meta's offers3.

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Strategic AI Investment

The researcher hires follow Meta's $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI, bringing CEO Alexandr Wang aboard to lead the superintelligence division12. This forms part of Meta's broader $65 billion commitment to AI infrastructure in 2025, including construction of a 1.3-million-GPU data center in New Mexico1.

Meta's recruitment drive stems partly from internal challenges with its Llama 4 model, which failed to meet performance benchmarks and was delayed after underperforming in reasoning and math capabilities compared to OpenAI's systems2. The company has also attempted to recruit OpenAI co-founders Sutskever and John Schulman, though both declined3.

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Industry Impact

The recruitment battle reflects broader trends in AI development, where individual researchers can influence a company's trajectory. Meta's aggressive hiring has prompted other tech companies to increase their AI budgets and salary offers to retain talent1.

Despite the departures, Altman appeared dismissive of Meta's strategy during a recent event, saying, "It's like OK, Zuckerberg is doing some new insane thing. What's next?"2 OpenAI has responded by offering existing researchers increased compensation and expanded roles to prevent further defections3.

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Related
How much of Meta's $65B AI budget is allocated to talent vs infrastructure
Which specific AI capabilities are Meta's Llama 4 delays most impacting
What retention strategies are other tech giants deploying against Meta's raids
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