Amid intensifying competition for top artificial intelligence talent, Meta executives are pushing back on claims made by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that the company is offering $100 million signing bonuses to lure away his staff.
During an internal all-hands meeting on Thursday, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth addressed Altman’s recent remarks, calling them “dishonest” and misleading. Altman originally made the claim during an episode of his brother’s podcast, suggesting Meta was aggressively offering “giant” compensation packages in an effort to poach OpenAI employees.
“Sam is known to exaggerate,” Bosworth said at the meeting, attended by many new Meta engineers.
He added that while the company is indeed recruiting AI talent—including some former OpenAI researchers—the offers being made are far more nuanced than the headline figure suggests.
“He’s suggesting that we’re doing this for every single person… Look, you guys, the market’s hot. It’s not that hot,” Bosworth said.
He clarified that the $100 million figure Altman cited likely reflects total long-term compensation for a small number of senior leadership roles, not typical sign-on bonuses.
“Of course, he’s not mentioning what the actual terms of the offer are,” Bosworth added.
Meta has been actively hiring for its “Superintelligence” team, reportedly bringing on a number of former OpenAI staff, including the three co-founders of OpenAI’s Zurich research office: Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai. Beyer publicly denied the claim of a $100 million offer, calling it “fake news” in a post on X.
Bosworth hinted that even more former OpenAI staff are expected to join Meta soon, though he declined to name individuals.
“We are succeeding at getting talent from OpenAI,” he said, attributing Altman’s comments to frustration.
Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox also spoke at the meeting, contrasting the company’s approach to AI with that of OpenAI and other rivals. While acknowledging that ChatGPT has stronger user engagement than Meta’s AI offerings, Cox said Meta intends to focus less on productivity tools and more on entertainment, connection, and everyday use cases.
“We’re not going to go right after ChatGPT,” Cox said. “We need to differentiate… We’re going to go focus on the things we uniquely do well.”
Despite reports of enormous compensation packages, Meta’s own disclosures do not reflect such offers. In 2024, the company’s highest-paid executive was COO Javier Olivan, with total compensation of $25.5 million. The median compensation across Meta employees was approximately $417,400, according to company filings.
While CEO Mark Zuckerberg takes a nominal $1 salary, he receives a $14 million security allowance and retains significant wealth through Meta stock holdings.
The tension between Meta and OpenAI has played out publicly amid broader scrutiny of hiring practices and compensation trends in the AI sector. As Meta accelerates its AI strategy, both companies continue to vie for a limited pool of high-level researchers, fueling speculation—and occasional hyperbole—about what it takes to secure top talent.
OpenAI and Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
