A tug of war on great AI talent is underway. Zai is currently in the ring.
According to a Business Insider Analysis in LinkedIn Profile, the Elon Musk startup has yank at least 14 researchers and engineers from Meta's grip since January.
According to their profile, some people have recently joined a few weeks ago. The fight to ensure the brightest mind in AI shows it is far from far as large tech rivals continue to raid each other's ranks.
That includes people like Xinlei Chen, a research scientist in Meta's basic AI research.
Chen focuses on multimodal format AI, including images and videos that are actively adopted by the new Superintelligence team in the Field Meta. So is Ching-Yao Chuang, another former meta-study scientist who left for Xai in May.
Other Meta's departures include Alan Rice, a former data center manager who left in April and works at Xai, based in Memphis, Tennessee, Zai's largest supercomputer hub site.
According to LinkedIn, AI research scientists who helped expand Meta's flagship llama AI model – joined Xai in April.
Meta and Xai spokesmen did not respond to business insider requests for comment.
“Many powerful meta-engineers are on Xai and don't need an insane initial comp (still great, but not unsustainable),” Musk said in a X post on Sunday. “Also, Xai has much more market capitalization growth potential than meta. And we're on a super merit basis. You can do something great and your comp can shift quite a bit higher.”
Last month, Meta hired CHEngjia Zhao (co-creator of ChatGpt) as the new Superintelligence Labs chief scientist. Meta also sparked three researchers who helped launch Openai's Zurich office.
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Mankind CEO Dario Amody has spoken out about Zuckerberg's hanging tactics of hanging compensation offers. In an episode of “Big Technology Podcast,” which aired last week, Amodei said that Meta believes “we're trying to buy something that we can't buy, and that's consistent with our mission.”
Amodei said that human employees received and rejected favorable offers, and the company chose not to counter the inflated individual pay packages as it could damage the company culture despite the principles of fairness.
“If Mark Zuckerberg throws a dart on a dartboard and hits your name, that doesn't mean you shouldn't be paid ten times more than the guy next to you who is equally skilled or talented,” he said.
Elsewhere in AI Talent Shuffle, Microsoft has poached more than 20 Google employees in recent months, the Wall Street Journal reported this week.
Xai has also poached many engineers from other companies in Musk over the years. The company currently employs around 40 former Tesla employees and a small number of former SpaceX staff, LinkedIn analysis shows. Business Insider previously reported that Xai hired many Tesla engineers shortly after the electric car manufacturer began a massive layoff in April 2024. Xai employs around 1,200 people, including an army of AI tutors who train the company's chatbots.
Earlier this year, Xai's internal organization chart showed that the company's project lead at Colossus Data Center is Daniel Rowland. A hardware engineer named Daniel Rowland has been working on Tesla's Dojo SuperComputer since 2018, according to a LinkedIn profile and internal documentation reviewed by Business Insider at the time.
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