Meta Hires Three OpenAI Researchers for Its Superintelligence Team
- ByStartupStory | June 26, 2025
Meta Platforms has reportedly hired three senior researchers from OpenAI to join its newly formed “superintelligence” team, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The move comes just days after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman accused Meta of aggressively poaching its talent by offering multimillion-dollar incentives.
The researchers—Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai—were all based at OpenAI’s Zurich office and are said to have joined Meta’s high-priority AI division focused on developing artificial general intelligence (AGI).
An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed the departure of the three employees but declined to share additional details. Meta, meanwhile, has not issued a public statement.
The development follows Meta’s recent $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI, through which it acquired a 49% stake and brought Alexandr Wang, Scale’s 28-year-old founder and CEO, onboard to lead superintelligence efforts. This signals Meta’s aggressive push to gain ground in the race for AGI, an area increasingly seen as a strategic frontier in the global AI arms race.
OpenAI’s Altman, during a recent public interaction, remarked, “I’ve heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor.” He also claimed that Meta had offered some of his team members bonuses worth $100 million to switch sides.
Once a champion of open-source AI, Meta has faced setbacks due to internal attrition and delays in rolling out competitive open-source models. The new hires mark Meta’s attempt to reinvigorate its AI roadmap and catch up with rivals like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and China’s DeepSeek.
The global race to develop AGI is heating up, with leading AI labs vying for talent and technological breakthroughs that could define the next era of computing and digital services.
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