Meta’s renewed push into AI is throwing the entire market off-balance, and Apple is particularly exposed.With morale arguably at an all-time low inside Cupertino’s AI teams, Zuckerberg’s multimillion-dollar check-cutting spree may have already pulled at least one top researcher out of Apple Park.And there may be more to come.
What multimillion-dollar check-cutting spree? According to recent reports, Meta has offered massive pay packages to lure top AI researchers from rivals.And while OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claims those offers have included bonuses “like $100 million,” Meta execs later clarified that the figures reflect multi-year compensation packages, rather than instant sign-on checks.Still, even the walk-backs suggest that numbers in the tens of millions are now fair game, to the point that OpenAI is reportedly “recalibrating” compensation to try and stop a brain drain that already took at least six senior researchers to Menlo Park.
Here’s , which reported on a memo that OpenAI’s Chief Research Officer, Mark Chen, sent internally: While much of the drama has centered around OpenAI, says some members of Apple’s foundation models team have been approached with offers ranging from $10 million to $40 million per year.At least one senior Apple AI researcher, Tom Gunter, left the company last week, although it is unclear whether he left for Meta.Others reportedly came close to walking, including the MLX team behind Apple’s open-source framework for training models on Apple Silicon.
But where did this come from? The recent poaching spree reportedly started after Mark Zuckerberg grew frustrated that Meta was falling behind in the race for frontier AI.A few weeks ago, rumors began circulating that Zuckerberg was personally calling AI engineers in an effort to recruit them to a new initiative within Meta.That initiative was officially announced yesterday as the Superintelligence Lab.
Just in the past few weeks, Zuckerberg and his team have reportedly explored or directly pursued acquisitions of companies like Perplexity, Safe Superintelligence, Thinking Machine Labs, and Runway AI.None panned out, but Meta did manage to basically acquihire Scale AI, whose ex-CEO, Alexandr Wang, will now lead Superintelligence Lab.In the meantime, Meta has poached several senior OpenAI researchers, and is now openly targeting the kind of LLM and computer vision talent Apple has historically underpaid compared to the broader market.
The company is also reportedly trying to acquire PlayAI, a voice cloning startup, and have poached top leadership from Google’s Gemini division.9to5Mac’s take The timing isn’t great for Cupertino.As reported yesterday by , Apple is currently weighing whether to outsource key parts of Siri’s future to third-party models from OpenAI or Anthropic, a move that has shaken morale inside Apple’s AI ranks.
says that some employees view the shift as a vote of no confidence in their work, one that could push more of them to jump ship, especially when companies like Meta are offering 2–4x their current compensation.Zuckerberg isn’t playing around, and he clearly knows he has stockholders’ carte blanche to spend whatever it takes to position Meta for the next phase of the AI race, leaving profitability for the next decade.If so.
He also knows that few companies are willing to stomach the same approach, let alone match his offers, especially if it risks further fueling internal tensions among employees who already feel undervalued.Apple, as usual, hasn’t commented.But if it hopes to avoid falling even further behind in this new phase of AI, it may have no choice but to rethink its compensation strategy.
Otherwise, it won’t just be licensing models from the outside.It’ll be watching its best engineers build them elsewhere.Best Apple Watch deals on Amazon 40mm Apple Watch SE 2: 24% off at $189 42mm Apple Watch Series 10: 25% off at $299 46mm Apple Watch Series 10: 16% off at $359 49mm Apple Watch Ultra 2: 7% off at $741 You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day.
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