It has been reported that Mark Zuckerberg’s company Meta is offering retention bonuses of up to $250 million (i.e., incentives for not leaving the company) to keep the most influential AI researchers on the team. This is a decisive measure aimed at curbing the migration of key talent.
Nevertheless, according to Yahoo Finance, Elon Musk’s xAI has, since the beginning of the year, brought over 14 engineers from Meta’s AI division. Musk has employed a distinctive format for attracting talent: he says a “hyper-meritocratic” environment has been created at xAI—those who perform better receive higher salaries and larger equity packages.
According to sources, engineers moving to xAI find themselves in an intense startup environment: a team of cutting-edge specialists works on projects described as “the most state-of-the-art” seven days a week. In Musk’s view, something outweighs monetary gain—the spirit of “being the author of great change”; thus he regards the influx of engineers joining xAI even without big bonuses as proof that his chosen approach is right. In other words, it is not multi-million packages but the idea of “doing something monumental” that attracts seasoned talent more strongly.
At the same time, Meta disputes the figures Musk cites about AI researcher migration. The company under Zuckerberg prides itself on its powerful infrastructure and the independence it grants researchers—these two factors are presented as its chief advantages.
Another view was added to the overall picture: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, warning about Meta’s compensation strategy, said that excessively large bonuses can create a sense of unfair distribution and a “toxic atmosphere” within the team. In his words, “you can’t buy the mission with money”: if some receive rewards near a lottery win while the rest work on a Silicon Valley average salary, the environment is likely to deteriorate.
In short, the “war for talent” in AI has made the intersection of technological cultures even clearer:
- Meta — offers immediate financial stability, a vast compute infrastructure, and broad scientific autonomy.
- xAI — promises partnership via equity, deep integration into the team, and “the opportunity to build from zero something that could change the world.”
And the field is wide open: whether the recipe of “more money” or that of “a bigger idea” prevails is being decided by the strongest talents with their choices.
Read 'Zamin' on Telegram!
