The break is unusual. OpenAI rarely halts its intense push for artificial general intelligence (AGI). “Meta knows we’re taking this week to recharge and will take advantage of it to try and pressure you to make decisions fast and in isolation,” Chief Research Officer Mark Chen warned in a Slack memo, as seen by Wired.
Meta strikes while OpenAI pauses
This break lands at a tense moment. Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg has already hired away seven researchers from OpenAI. Among them are Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, Xiaohua Zhai and Trapit Bansal, a key contributor to OpenAI’s o1 model.
Meta wants OpenAI’s best. And it knows exactly when to strike. “Meta knows we’re taking this week to recharge and will take advantage of it to try and pressure you to make decisions fast and in isolation,” Chen repeated in the same message.
Big money and bigger pressure
Meta’s offers are no small talk. Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, told his brother Jack on a podcast that Meta has dangled signing bonuses over $100 million for some staff. “Over the past month, Meta has been aggressively building out their new AI effort, and has repeatedly (and mostly unsuccessfully) tried to recruit some of our strongest talent with comp-focused packages,” Chen wrote on Slack.
A source close to Meta told Wired the company wants the best from OpenAI and Google. “They haven’t necessarily expanded the band, but for top talent, the sky is the limit,” the source said.
Beyer refutes Altman’s $100 million claim
Lucas Beyer, who recently left OpenAI for Meta Platforms, has denied claims that he was lured with a huge payout. In a direct post on X (formerly Twitter), he wrote, “Hey all, couple quick notes: 1) Yes, we will be joining Meta. 2) No, we did not get 100M sign-on, that’s fake news. Excited about what’s ahead though, will share more in due time.”Beyer’s response came after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on the Uncapped podcast that Meta made “giant offers” to poach his people. “Like $100 million signing bonuses. It is crazy,” Altman said on air. He also claimed he was relieved people had turned the offers down.
Beyer is not the only OpenAI researcher jumping ship. Alexander Kolesnikov and Xiaohua Zhai have joined him, leaving OpenAI’s Zurich office for Meta’s expanding AI push. According to The Information, the list is growing. Shengjia Zhao, Jiahui Yu, Shuchao Bi and Hongyu Ren are also said to be joining Mark Zuckerberg’s superintelligence effort soon.
Fear, loyalty and grief in the ranks
The impact runs deep. Cheng Lu, a technical staff member at OpenAI, posted on X, “Not too many people outside the company know how talented and hardcore they are.” He added, “Such a huge loss to OpenAI and I feel really disappointed that the leadership didn’t keep them.” His post went viral before he deleted it.
OpenAI staff admit the fatigue is real. Inside, some feel Meta is pouncing while they’re exhausted. “If they pressure you, or make ridiculous exploding offers just tell them to back off, it’s not nice to pressure people in potentially the most important decision,” one research leader wrote to staff, as Wired confirmed.
OpenAI’s plan to hold the line
Chen says OpenAI is adjusting pay and reward structures. “I feel a visceral feeling right now, as if someone has broken into our home and stolen something,” Chen wrote. He added, “Please trust that we haven’t been sitting idly by.” He promised he and Altman are “around the clock to talk to those with offers.”
But Chen made clear he has limits. “While I’ll fight to keep every one of you, I won’t do so at the price of fairness to others,” he wrote.
More than just a week off
Staff may rest for a week, but leaders will stay working. Some inside believe the company has focused too much on launching new features. Chen wants them to return to the core goal. “We need to remain focused on the real prize of finding ways to compute (a lot more supercomputers are coming online later this year) into intelligence,” he wrote. “This is the main quest, and it’s important to remember that skirmishes with Meta are the side quest.”
Sam Altman backed him up in Slack. “It’s been really amazing to watch Mark’s leadership and integrity through this process, especially when he has had to make tough decisions. Very grateful we have him as our leader!”
OpenAI has weathered crisis before, including Altman’s brief firing last year. But the stakes now feel different. Some see the break as vital care. Others see it as damage control.
One exhausted researcher posted, then deleted, a simple truth: this mission is not just code. It’s people. And people burn out.
While OpenAI asks staff to rest, Meta waits. And the world’s AI race grinds on — powered by human brains that need a moment to breathe.
