Ex-OpenAI researcher confirms move to Meta, denies $100 million payout

The AI talent war continues to heat up. Lucas Beyer, one of the three senior researchers who recently left OpenAI for Meta, has confirmed his new role at the social media giant but dismissed claims that the trio was offered a $100 million sign-on bonus.

“Hey all, couple quick notes: 1) yes, we will be joining Meta. 2) no, we did not get 100M sign-on, that's fake news,” Beyer wrote on social media platform X. He added, “Excited about what's ahead though, will share more in due time!”



Beyer was part of OpenAI’s Zurich office along with researchers Alexander Kolesnikov and Xiaohua Zhai. The Wall Street Journal had earlier reported that all three had been poached by Meta to join its CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s newly created “superintelligence” team.

The team is tasked with developing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), AI systems that can perform tasks better than humans.

Earlier this week, OpenAI chief Sam Altman criticised Meta’s approach to hiring, suggesting that the company was offering massive packages to lure away top talent because it lacked in innovation.

“They started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team,” Altman said in a podcast hosted by his brother. “You know, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that in compensation per year.”

Meta has denied those claims. According to The Verge, during an internal meeting on Friday, the company’s CTO told employees that Altman’s remarks were inaccurate.


“Sam is known to exaggerate, and in this case, I know exactly why he’s doing it, which is because we are succeeding at getting talent from OpenAI,” he said. “He’s not very happy about that.”

Meta’s AI push has intensified in recent months. The company is investing heavily to stay ahead in the race, including a $14.3 billion deal for a 49% stake in Scale AI. It has also onboarded Scale AI’s 28-year-old founder Alexandr Wang to bolster its efforts.