Sam Altman Says Meta Is Offering $100M Signing Bonuses to Poach OpenAI Staff—But No One’s Left Yet

In the latest escalation of Silicon Valley’s high-stakes AI arms race, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claims Meta is offering massive $100 million signing bonuses to lure away his top employees — a move that highlights just how desperate the tech giant has become to catch up in the AI race.

“They started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team,” Altman said on the “Uncapped” podcast, hosted by his brother, Jack.

“You know, like $100 million signing bonuses.”

So far, Altman says, no one has taken the bait.

“None of our best people have decided to take them up on that.”

Meta declined to comment on the revelation. But the aggressive poaching attempts line up with what’s becoming increasingly clear: Mark Zuckerberg is betting the company on AI, and he’s personally leading the charge.

A Frustrated Zuckerberg Takes Control

Reports from Bloomberg and The New York Times describe a hands-on Zuckerberg, growing increasingly dissatisfied with Meta’s progress in AI while watching rivals like OpenAI dominate the global conversation. To accelerate development, Zuckerberg has been hosting AI experts at his homes, reorganizing offices, and even placing Meta’s new AI “superintelligence” team within eyesight of his own desk at the company’s Menlo Park headquarters.

This isn’t just executive oversight — it’s a total immersion. And it shows how seriously he’s taking the goal of building machines that can eventually surpass human intelligence.

Meta’s $14B Bet on Scale AI

Last week, Meta further signaled its ambitions with a massive $14.3 billion investment for a 49% stake in Scale AI, a data infrastructure startup co-founded by tech prodigy Alexandr Wang. Wang, just 28, is now joining Meta along with several team members from Scale AI — a clear infusion of young, deep-tech talent into Meta’s core AI push.

This marks one of Meta’s biggest bets yet, designed not only to supercharge its AI capabilities but also to send a message: Meta is not backing down.

OpenAI Still Sets the Pace

But Meta’s aggressive moves come from a place of playing catch-up.

Since late 2022, OpenAI has been the face of generative AI innovation, thanks to its GPT models, ChatGPT, and a deep partnership with Microsoft. The company has raised tens of billions of dollars and become the benchmark against which every other AI lab — including Meta, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic — is measured.

Meta, meanwhile, has had a more scattered AI narrative. Its early investments in large language models (LLMs) didn’t generate the same public traction, and while Meta’s LLaMA models are respected in research circles, they haven’t broken out in the mainstream the way ChatGPT has. That frustration appears to be driving Zuckerberg’s personal commitment to getting things right — fast.

Altman Isn’t Impressed

Despite acknowledging Meta’s push, Altman had sharp words for the company’s culture and past innovation record:

“Their current AI efforts have not worked as well as they had hoped,” he said. “There’s 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.”

His comments offer a rare public swipe at a fellow AI heavyweight and underscore just how competitive — and increasingly personal — the AI talent war has become.

Why Talent Is Everything Right Now

At the heart of this escalating battle is one shared understanding: the future of AI is being built by a relatively small group of elite engineers and researchers. That makes top talent one of the most sought-after resources in the tech world right now — and companies are willing to throw unimaginable amounts of money to get it.

Offering a $100 million signing bonus isn’t just about getting someone in the door. It’s a declaration of war.

But as of now, OpenAI is holding the line.