OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has alleged that tech giant Meta attempted to poach his company’s top talent with signing bonuses as high as $100 million, though the offers were reportedly unsuccessful.
Altman made the claims during a recent appearance on the Uncapped Podcast, hosted by his brother, Jack Altman, on Tuesday. He stated that Meta has aggressively tried to recruit from OpenAI in recent months as part of its push to bolster its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.
Okay.ng reports that, according to Altman, despite Meta’s lavish offers, none of OpenAI’s employees have accepted the incentives.
“They started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team,” he said. “You know, like $100 million signing bonuses.”
Altman used the podcast to express skepticism about Meta’s current trajectory in the AI space. While acknowledging the company’s persistence, he questioned its ability to innovate at the level required to lead in advanced AI development.
“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.”
Meta, which has publicly committed to open-source AI research and continues to develop its LLaMA (Large Language Model Meta AI) models, has not responded to Altman’s remarks as of the time of filing this report.
