OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told his brother that Mark Zuckerberg was offering compensation packages worth more than $100 million to lure OpenAI staff to Meta. Altman said he was happy that none of the best minds at OpenAI had gone for the golden ticket so far. On Thursday, three OpenAI researchers who lead the firm’s Zurich office announced they would join Meta.
The trio of OpenAI engineers who co-founded the firm’s Zurich office last year will indeed be leaving to join Meta—but they aren’t getting $100 million apiece to do so.
Lucas Beyer posted on X Thursday that he, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai would depart OpenAI to join the $1.8 trillion company led by Mark Zuckerberg. Beyer said it was “fake news” that Zuckerberg was paying him that level of compensation. However, that news came from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman himself, who called the offers “crazy” this month.
“They started making these like, giant offers, to a lot of people on our team—$100 million signing bonuses, more than that comp per year,” Altman told his brother Jack Altman in an episode of the podcast Uncapped. “I’m really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take him up on that.”
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.Excited about what's ahead though, will share more in due time!cc @__kolesnikov__ and @XiaohuaZhai.— Lucas Beyer (bl16) (@giffmana) June 26, 2025
