Meta's Chief Technology Officer Says Sam Altman Is 'Being Dishonest' About $100 Million Signing Bonuses Poaching Claim OpenAI's CEO said last week that Meta was trying to poach his employees with "$100 million signing bonuses," but Meta execs — and new hires — are refuting the claim.
By Sherin Shibu Edited by Melissa Malamut
Key Takeaways
- Meta's CTO Andrew Bosworth refuted claims that his company is trying to poach OpenAI researchers with $100 million signing bonuses.
- At a leaked all-hands meeting, Bosworth said OpenAI's CEO was "being dishonest" with his claims.
- Meta is one of the most valuable companies in the world, with a market capitalization of over $1.8 trillion.
Meta's technology chief is calling OpenAI CEO Sam Altman "dishonest" for claiming that Meta is offering nine-figure compensation packages to new employees on its secretive AI superintelligence team.
According to The Verge, at a company-wide all-hands meeting on Thursday, Meta's Chief Technology Officer, Andrew Bosworth, pushed back against Altman's remarks last week that Meta was offering "$100 million signing bonuses" and "more than that" in compensation to poach OpenAI employees.
"Sam is just being dishonest here," Bosworth, 43, said at the leaked meeting. "He's suggesting that we're doing this for every single person… Look, you guys, the market's hot. It's not that hot."
Related: Meta Takes on ChatGPT By Releasing a Standalone AI App: 'A Long Journey'
Altman, 40, said last week that he was "really happy" that none of OpenAI's "best people" had chosen to join Meta. Now, Bosworth says that OpenAI staff aren't joining Meta because Altman has been countering Meta's offers, "creating a small market" of possible employees to lead Meta's AI efforts.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Still, Meta has successfully poached talent from OpenAI. According to a Thursday TechCrunch report, AI researcher Trapit Bansal, who has been working at OpenAI since 2022, has left the company for Meta. A Wednesday report from The Wall Street Journal revealed that Meta poached three additional OpenAI researchers who worked at OpenAI's Zurich office: Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai.
Beyer posted on X on Thursday that the trio did not receive $100 million signing bonuses, calling the rumor "fake news."
hey all, couple quick notes:
— Lucas Beyer (bl16) (@giffmana) June 26, 2025
1) yes, we will be joining Meta.
2) no, we did not get 100M sign-on, that's fake news.
Excited about what's ahead though, will share more in due time!
cc @__kolesnikov__ and @XiaohuaZhai.
Meta has also poached the CEO of $32 billion AI startup, Safe Superintelligence, Daniel Gross, and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman.
Related: Meta Poaches the CEO of a $32 Billion AI Startup — After Trying to Buy the Company and Being Told No
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, 41, has recently doubled down on a push for superintelligence, AI that exceeds human intelligence in reasoning, memory, and knowledge. According to a Bloomberg report from earlier this month, Zuckerberg is assembling a team of around 50 experts to work on superintelligence with the goal of one day infusing it across the company's products, including the bestselling Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.
Meta also made one of its largest deals yet this month, investing $14.3 billion in Scale AI, a startup that provides data to train AI systems. As part of the deal, Scale AI's 28-year-old CEO Alexandr Wang will join Meta in a leadership role on the superintelligence team. The investment caused Scale AI's valuation to more than double from $14 billion to $29 billion.
AI voice cloning startup Play AI is also reportedly in talks with Meta about an acquisition, though the deal has yet to be publicly announced.
Meta stock was up over 21% year-to-date at the time of writing. The company is one of the most valuable in the world, with a market capitalization of over $1.8 trillion. OpenAI was worth $300 billion as of late March.
