An executive from Meta referred to Sam Altman of OpenAI as “dishonest” amid claims that Mark Zuckerberg was attempting to lure top AI talent from startups with lucrative offers totaling $100 million.
During a company-wide meeting, Meta’s Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth stated, “Sam is dishonest here,” as reported by Verge. He went on to clarify that Altman’s suggestion that Meta is aggressively poaching talent was exaggerated, noting, “The market is hot. It’s not that hot.”
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is currently in a heated rivalry with the creators of ChatGPT to advance AI technology. Zuckerberg has initiated a new AI lab aimed at developing “ultra intelligence,” alongside an investment of $14.3 billion.
Last week, Altman added fuel to the fire during an appearance on a podcast, where he mentioned that significant offers were being made to members of his team. He claimed, “We’ve started making huge offers to many people on our team,” including a potential “signature bonus” of $100 million, though he remarked that no top talent had yet accepted these offers.
However, only a week after Altman’s assertions, a handful of OpenAI researchers, including Lucas Bayer, have opted to join Meta. Bayer confirmed this in a post on X, mentioning that he and colleagues Alexander Kolesnikov and Shaofah Zai had been recruited by Zuckerberg. Bayer also clarified that they “didn’t get a 100m sign-on,” calling the claims “fake news.”
Another notable departure from OpenAI is lead researcher Trapit Bansal, who contributed to the development of OpenAI’s first AI inference model, O1. He discussed the situation with TechCrunch.
At the all-hands meeting on Thursday, Bosworth emphasized that Altman’s remarks overlooked key considerations. He pointed out, “What Sam has failed to mention is that he is fighting all these offers and creating a small market for the very few people who will take on the role of senior senior leadership.” Bosworth remarked that Altman often tends to exaggerate and implied that Altman was displeased with Meta’s recent successes in attracting OpenAI talent.
OpenAI has not yet provided a comment regarding Bosworth’s statements.
