Meta offered OpenAI employees $100 million bonus: Sam Altman

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has stated that Meta attempted to recruit his employees with staggering compensation packages, including signing bonuses reaching $100 million. The disclosure came during a discussion on the 'Uncapped' podcast hosted by his brother Jack Altman.

"They (Meta) started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team," Altman said on the podcast, according to a report by Reuters on the matter. "You know, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that (in) compensation per year."

As per the Reuters report, the OpenAI chief added that despite these substantial offers, none of his top researchers have accepted Meta's proposals so far. 

Altman's comments follow Meta's recent $14.3 billion investment in data-labelling startup Scale AI and the hiring of its CEO, Alexandr Wang, to lead Meta's new superintelligence division. "I've heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor," Altman noted in the podcast. 

The recruitment battle comes as Meta works to strengthen its AI capabilities after experiencing staff departures and delays in launching competitive open-source models against rivals like Google, China's DeepSeek, and OpenAI, suggests the Reuters report.

Meta did not respond to requests for comment from Reuters regarding Altman's claims, and Reuters could not independently verify the reported compensation figures. 

The alleged recruitment efforts reflect the increasingly competitive landscape for AI expertise, where companies view securing top talent as critical to developing advanced artificial intelligence systems.