Meta AI employees reportedly jumping ship following billion-dollar hiring spree

(KRON) — Less than two months after reports surfaced that Meta was dangling $100 million bonuses in an effort to poach top artificial intelligence talent, the Facebook parent company is already seeing people jump ship from its AI division. According to a report in Business Insider Tuesday, Meta has seen eight people, including researchers, engineers and a senior product leader, exit its Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) division.

Employees who have departed the MSL division, which was only launched two months ago are reportedly mostly veterans who helped build core AI infrastructure for Meta. However, some of the new hires lured during Mark Zuckerberg’s multi-million-dollar recruitment drive over the summer were also among those who left.

A Meta spokesperson quoted by BI attributed the departures to normal attrition for “any organization this size.”

“Most of these employees had been with the company for years, and we wish them the best,” the spokesperson told BI.

It was recently reported that Meta would be putting a freeze on new AI hires after its summer-long, billion-dollar recruitment drive.