By buld_online 
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has accused Meta of attempting to lure away his top engineers with signing bonuses as high as $100 million, underscoring the intensifying battle for talent in the artificial intelligence space.
“They [Meta] started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team,” Altman said on the Uncapped podcast, hosted by his brother, in an episode that aired Tuesday. “You know, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that [in] compensation per year.”
Altman added that, “At least, so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that.”
The comments shine a light on the growing rivalry between two of the world’s biggest AI players, as Big Tech firms race to secure the brightest minds in generative AI. Meta has been aggressively expanding its efforts, especially after forming a new superintelligence unit led by Alexandr Wang, the founder of data-labeling firm Scale AI. Meta recently invested $14.3 billion in Wang’s company before appointing him to the role.
“I’ve heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor,” Altman said during the podcast.
Meta’s recruitment push comes at a time when the company is reportedly struggling with internal churn and delays in rolling out competitive open-source AI models. Once considered a front-runner in the space, the Facebook parent is now striving to catch up with firms like Google DeepMind, OpenAI, and emerging Chinese player DeepSeek.