Meta offering $100 million signing bonuses to OpenAI talent, says CEO Sam Altman

Published connected 18/06/2025 - 16:36 GMT+2•Updated 19/06/2025 - 8:49 GMT+2

OpenAI’s leader has accused Meta of trying to poach his his champion labor with $100 cardinal (€87 million) successful signing bonuses. 

Sam Altman told his relative Jack connected his podcast that Meta was offering much than that successful “compensation per year,” but didn’t elaborate connected immoderate of nan benefits aliases banal options being offered. 

Meta, nan proprietor of nan societal and messaging apps Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, conscionable made a $14 cardinal (€12.18 billion) finance to bargain a 49 per cent liking successful Scale AI, an artificial intelligence startup, arsenic a measurement of bolstering nan AI broadside of its business. 

Scale AI had a preexisting business narration pinch OpenAI, wherever it fine-tuned their much precocious ChatGPT models. 

Global leaders opportunity winning nan AI title is captious to nationalist information and for advancements successful health, business, and technology. 

Meanwhile, companies specified arsenic OpenAI, Google and DeepSeek, among galore others, are battling it retired to build nan champion AI platforms. 

Altman said that while he respects Meta’s “aggression” successful competing pinch OpenAI, but that truthful far, nary of his apical talent has near him yet. 

“I deliberation Meta thinks of america arsenic their biggest competitor and, you know, I deliberation it's logical for them to support trying [with AI],” Altman said.

“I deliberation nan strategy of a ton of upfront guaranteed comp(ensation) and that being nan logic you show personification to subordinate … I don't deliberation that’s going to group up a awesome culture”. 

Altman added that he respects overmuch astir Meta but doesn’t deliberation it is “great astatine innovation”. 

Instead, Altman thinks unit are staying astatine OpenAI because of a “really typical culture” astatine his institution and their ngo to create artificial superintelligence, wherever AI will beryllium smarter than humans. 

“I deliberation group look astatine nan 2 paths [OpenAI vs Meta] and they opportunity OpenAI’s sewage a really bully shot, a overmuch amended changeable connected really delivering connected ace intelligence and whitethorn yet beryllium nan much valuable company,” he said.