Meta has offered OpenAI employees bonuses of up to $100 million as part of efforts to recruit top artificial intelligence talent, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on a podcast released Tuesday.
Altman said on the “Uncapped” podcast that Meta made large compensation offers, including signing bonuses, to many people on the OpenAI team. He said none of the company’s top employees had accepted the offers so far.
“They started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team,” Altman said. “You know, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that in compensation per year.”
He added that Meta sees OpenAI as its main competitor.
The hiring efforts come as Meta continues to build a new superintelligence unit and expand its artificial intelligence work.
Last week, Meta invested $14.3 billion in data-labeling firm Scale AI and brought in CEO Alexandr Wang to lead its new team focused on advanced AI systems.
The move is part of a broader trend across the tech industry, where companies are competing to attract top AI engineers.
Meta has faced challenges in this area, including delays in the launch of its new open-source AI models and the loss of some key staff.
OpenAI and other leading AI firms, including Google and DeepSeek, are working on next-generation models that require highly skilled teams.
