‘Fake news’: Poached OpenAI employee says he did not receive $100M signing bonus from Meta

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — A former OpenAI employee is pouring cold water over Sam Altman’s claim that Meta tried to poach the artificial intelligence company’s best employees by dangling $100 million signing bonuses. Altman, the chief executive of the company behind ChatGPT, made the remark while speaking on an episode of the “Uncapped” podcast.

“They started making these giant offers to a lot of people on our team — $100 million signing bonuses, more than that comp (compensation) per year,” said Altman on the podcast, which is hosted by his brother Jack Altman. “It’s crazy. I’m really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that.”

However, one former OpenAI employee who did jump ship for Meta has slammed Altman’s claim as “fake news.” Lucas Beyer, a researcher who left ChatGPT for Meta, said he received no such bonus.

Beyer, according to Business Insider, joined OpenAI last November and helped set up the company’s Zurich office with two of his colleagues, Alexander Kolesnikov and Xiaohua Zhai. On Thursday, Beyer took to X to announce that the trio had left OpenAI for Meta.

“Hey all, couple quick notes,” he wrote on the platform, formerly known as Twitter. “Yes, we will be joining Meta. No, we did not get $100M sign-on, that’s fake news.”

“Excited about what’s ahead though, will share more in due time!” he added in a post in which both Kolesnikov and Zhai were cc’d.

News of the trio’s move from OpenAI to Meta was first reported on Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal. In its report, the Journal called the move “a recruiting coup intended to help steer Meta Platforms out of an AI crisis.”

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly launched an aggressive recruitment effort to try and get the Facebook parent company’s AI efforts back on track after its most recent model underperformed at the company’s recent AI conference.