Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent acquisitions and hires in artificial intelligence have sparked major friction inside the social media giant — with new, mega-buck AI talent clashing with the company’s veteran researchers, according to a report.
Alexandr Wang — the 28-year-old billionaire who ran Scale AI before Meta “acquihired” him as chief AI officer for more than $14 billion — is clashing with longtime engineers in a tense standoff that’s roiling Zuckerberg’s AI division, according to the New York Times.
Shengjia Zhao — the OpenAI researcher who co-created ChatGPT and who was named Meta’s chief AI scientist in July — has likewise been grilling longtime Meta employees about their past work as they interview for new roles in the restructured organization, according to the report.
Researchers have been lining up outside Zhao’s office in recent weeks as the former OpenAI star conducts these assessments, one person told the publication.
Wang’s arrival, meanwhile, has created friction over Meta’s fundamental approach to AI development, with his superintelligence team pushing to make the company’s next model “closed” — keeping its technology secret.
This marks a major departure from Meta’s longtime philosophy of open-sourcing its models for other developers to build upon, causing some old guard members to chafe at the change, the Times reported.
The new leadership has chosen to abandon Meta’s previous frontier model called Behemoth, which saw its release delayed last spring after disappointing performance tests.
Meta invested $14.3 billion in Wang’s former company, Scale AI, before bringing him aboard to lead the charge against OpenAI and Google.
The 41-year-old Zuckerberg has backed his new hires with nine-figure compensation packages to lure top researchers from rivals, igniting a Silicon Valley poaching war. Last month, he pitched investors on “a new era of individual empowerment” while projecting capital expenditures up to $72 billion this year.
Meta’s AI division faces a dramatic four-way split as Meta reorganizes into groups focused on research, superintelligence development, products, and infrastructure, according to the report.
Meta is also considering downsizing the AI division, which has grown to thousands of employees, through potential role eliminations and transfers to other departments, sources said.
Several high-profile departures have followed the leadership changes. Joelle Pineau, a leading Meta computer scientist, left the company this year and later joined AI startup Cohere.
Angela Fan, a research scientist who worked on Meta’s open-source Llama model, recently departed for OpenAI, according to the Times.
Loredana Crisan, vice president of generative AI, is leaving for software company Figma as chief design officer, two sources told the paper.
Former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, who previously ran Safe Superintelligence, will lead development of new AI features under the products and applied research division.
Three people with knowledge of the matter told the Times that some members of the old guard have chafed at the new hires as Meta has spent billions to bring in AI talent.
The company is also actively exploring using third-party artificial intelligence models to power its products, potentially building on other open-source models or licensing closed-source technology from competitors.
This would mark a shift from Meta’s traditional approach of using only its own technology for AI products.
Meta declined to comment on the reorganization, which was first partially reported by The Information.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone mocked media coverage of the company’s AI shakeup, accusing reporters of exaggerating internal restructuring.
He contrasted Meta’s stated goal of bringing in talent for superintelligence research with what he described as the press sensationalizing the reorganization.
The restructuring represents Zuckerberg’s most aggressive gamble yet as Meta races to avoid being left behind in the AI revolution reshaping Silicon Valley’s power structure.
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