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Mark Zuckerberg is waging an unprecedented financial war for artificial intelligence supremacy, personally courting researchers with WhatsApp messages and multi-year compensation packages reaching up to $1 billion. His target? The 50-person startup Thinking Machines Lab (TML), founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. According to WIRED sources, Meta approached over a dozen TML staffers with offers between $200 million to $500 million over four years—including first-year guarantees of $50–100 million. Yet in a stunning rebuke to Silicon Valley's salary arms race, not a single TML researcher accepted.

Meta Communications Director Andy Stone disputed the scale and details of the offers, stating: "We made offers only to a handful of people at TML and while there was one sizable offer, the details are off." Stone questioned the motivations behind the leaks, asking: "Who is spinning this narrative and why?"

Zuckerberg's Personal Gambit

Zuckerberg's recruitment playbook involves direct WhatsApp outreach followed by rapid interviews with Meta's top brass. In messages viewed by WIRED, the CEO framed Meta's ambition as building "world-class AI assistants" for billions of users, promising researchers infrastructure to create "state-of-the-art open source models." This open-source strategy is central to Meta's counterattack against OpenAI. As one Meta source revealed:

"Boz [CTO Andrew Bosworth] has been upfront about using open source to undercut OpenAI. The idea is to commoditize the technology by releasing models that directly compete with ChatGPT."

This aggressive stance reportedly contributed to the rushed release of Llama 4, which faced criticism for benchmark manipulation after development delays.

Why the Rejection?

Three critical factors emerge from insider accounts:
1. Leadership Concerns: Since Zuckerberg appointed Scale AI cofounder Alexandr Wang as co-lead of Meta Superintelligence Labs (alongside ex-GitHub CEO Nat Friedman), whispers about Wang's management style and perceived inexperience have circulated. "Not everyone is keen to work for Wang," a source noted, echoing Sam Altman's jab that Meta recruited "quite far down" OpenAI's talent list.
2. Mission Mismatch: Multiple sources described disillusionment with Meta's product roadmap, where AI innovations often serve advertising-driven features like Reels. As one researcher bluntly put it: "Creating AI slop for Facebook isn't compelling." Competitors like Anthropic and OpenAI counter with missions focused on artificial general intelligence "benefiting all humanity."
3. TML's Fortress: With a record-breaking $12 billion valuation from history's largest seed round, TML offers researchers rare leverage: massive resources without sacrificing autonomy. As one source observed: "Researchers don’t have to choose between being a missionary or a mercenary."

The Unproven Lab

Industry sentiment toward Meta Superintelligence Labs remains skeptical. Beyond the Wang controversy, sources cite "big egos" and a "lack of coherent strategy" in early operations. With no formal org chart and all staff currently reporting to Wang, the lab’s structure—and ultimately its impact—remains undefined. Zuckerberg has still hired nearly two dozen researchers for MSL, but as one AI leader warned: "You can’t buy taste—or guaranteed breakthroughs."

The pressure is now palpable: After investing billions in recruitment, Meta must prove its superintelligence lab can translate financial might into technical dominance. For now, the industry watches whether TML's defiance becomes a trend—or a footnote in Zuckerberg's relentless expansion.

Source: Based on reporting by Kylie Robison for WIRED