Meta Poaches Apple AI Exec With $200M Pay Package [Report]

Meta has reportedly lured a key AI engineer from Apple with a $200 million pay package, highlighting the escalating talent war between tech giants. The details, reported by Bloomberg, underscore just how high the stakes have become as companies race to build out their AI teams.

According to people with knowledge of the matter, Meta hired Ruoming Pang, who ran Apple's AI models team, with a compensation package in the hundreds of millions spread over several years. Apple reportedly did not try to match the offer, as it far exceeded the company's typical pay structure for executives below the CEO level.

The move comes as Apple navigates what's been described as an "AI crisis" and has been reorganizing its executive team to rescue a delayed Siri revamp. The company's struggles with AI development have become more public, with key features of its Apple Intelligence platform facing delays.


Pang is joining Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), a new team focused on building AI systems that can perform tasks as well as or better than humans. The group has been aggressively recruiting top talent, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg successfully hiring more than 10 OpenAI researchers, as well as engineers from Anthropic, Google, and other startups. Other major hires include former GitHub chief Nat Friedman, AI startup founder Daniel Gross, and Scale AI co-founder Alexandr Wang, who joined as chief AI officer after Meta took a 49% stake in his firm.

The compensation packages for these roles are said to be comprised of a base salary, a significant signing bonus, and a substantial amount of Meta stock. The stock payouts are reportedly tied to performance metrics and multi-year contracts that exceed the typical four-year vesting schedule.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently commented on the fierce competition for talent, stating that Meta had offered his employees signing bonuses as high as $100 million. While Altman suggested his employees were choosing to stay at OpenAI, the hiring of Pang shows Meta's efforts are having an impact. This broader talent war is heating up as major players like OpenAI, which recently acquired Jony Ive's hardware startup, make bold moves to secure their position in the AI race.

Apple and Meta both declined to comment on the matter.


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