SAN FRANCISCO, USA — Sam Altman, Chief Executive Officer of OpenAI, has revealed that Meta offered signing bonuses as high as $100 million in unsuccessful attempts to lure top talent away from his company.
Altman made the disclosure during an episode of the Uncapped Podcast, hosted by his brother Jack Altman, on Tuesday, June 17, 2025.
He described the recruitment efforts as aggressive but ineffective.
“They started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team,” Altman said.
“You know, like $100 million signing bonuses.”
Despite the eye-watering incentives, Altman stated that none of OpenAI’s employees had accepted the offers.
Altman also took aim at Meta’s broader artificial intelligence strategy, suggesting the tech giant’s recent initiatives have underperformed.
“Their current AI efforts have not worked as well as they have hoped, and I respect being aggressive and continuing to try new things,” he said.
“There are many things I respect about Meta as a company, but I don’t think they’re a company that’s great at innovation. I think we understand a lot of things they don’t.”
His comments come as Meta accelerates its efforts to challenge leaders in the AI space.
According to Bloomberg, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pursuing a talent push for the company’s superintelligence lab and is reportedly rebooting Llama, its open-source large language model.
Meta is also said to be in discussions to hire prominent AI figures, including Nat Friedman, former CEO of GitHub, and Daniel Gross, a well-known investor and entrepreneur in the AI ecosystem.
The remarks underscore the escalating competition among tech giants for AI talent, with major firms offering extraordinary compensation to secure skilled researchers and engineers.
Altman’s revelation illustrates the scale of investment and urgency fuelling the AI arms race.
OpenAI, a pioneer in the development of advanced language models, including ChatGPT, has been at the forefront of AI research.
The company’s prominence has made it a prime target for competitors seeking to bolster their own capabilities.
