Elon Musk claims xAI lured Meta engineers without 'insane' pay packages: 'Do something great'
Amidst aggressive poaching by Meta, Elon Musk claimed that his AI company xAI successfully hired Meta engineers without high salaries.
Amid ongoing reports of aggressive poaching attempts by Meta targeting top talent at Google, Apple, and OpenAI, Elon Musk has claimed that his AI company, xAI, has successfully hired several engineers from Meta, without offering eye-watering salaries.
Responding to a post about OpenAI researchers rejecting Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s job offers, Musk revealed that xAI had managed to attract “many strong Meta engineers” without dangling “insane initial comp” in front of them.
"Many strong Meta engineers have and are joining xAI and without the need for insane initial comp (still great, but not unsustainably high)," he wrote, claiming that xAI has "vastly more" market cap growth potential than Meta.
Musk emphasised that his company is “hyper merit-based,” and that compensation can “shift substantially higher” based on performance: “Do something great and your comp can shift substantially higher.”
The comments come amid industry chatter about Meta offering some AI researchers packages reportedly worth up to $250 million in an effort to lure talent.
Anthropic AI CEO Dario Amodei recently joined the criticism, accusing Meta of undermining fairness and pay equity in the field. Speaking about counter-offers to his employees, Amodei said, “If Mark Zuckerberg throws a dart at a dartboard and it hits your name, that doesn't mean that you should be paid 10 times more than the guy next to you who's just as skilled, just as talented.”
Amodei didn’t mince words about Meta’s recruitment tactics, accusing Zuckerberg of “trying to buy something that can't be bought,” referring to mission-driven work in AI.
