A tech worker has reportedly turned down a staggering $1 billion pay offer to join Mark Zuckerberg’s artificial intelligence division, underscoring the brutal talent war raging through Silicon Valley’s AI ecosystem.
Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is said to have offered multi-hundred-million-dollar compensation packages to staff at Thinking Machines, a red-hot San Francisco-based AI startup founded by Mira Murati, a former OpenAI executive. According to Wired, the eye-watering deals ranged from $200 million to $500 million over four years, with upfront packages reaching $50 million to $100 million in the first year. One standout deal allegedly approached $1 billion in total value, making it one of the largest known pay proposals in Silicon Valley history.
So far, none of the Thinking Machines employees have accepted Meta’s offers, and the firm—which has yet to ship a product—recently raised $2 billion at a valuation of $12 billion, signaling investor confidence in the startup’s long-term promise and perhaps giving its staff less reason to jump ship.
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Meta, which confirmed it had approached a “handful” of employees at Thinking Machines, disputed the reported figures. A spokesperson said that while there was “one sizeable offer,” the numbers shared in media reports were inaccurate.
Murati’s rise has been meteoric. At 36, she has become one of the most powerful women in tech, building Thinking Machines into one of the most valuable pre-product AI startups in the world. Her firm’s ability to fend off Meta’s massive overtures speaks to its clout in an industry where generative AI breakthroughs are reshaping the corporate landscape.
AI Arms Race Reaches Fever Pitch
Meta’s failed recruitment push comes amid an escalating AI arms race where companies like Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia are jostling not only for dominance in market capitalization but also for control over the best minds in machine learning.
Zuckerberg has been directly leading the charge at Meta, personally reaching out to dozens of AI scientists through WhatsApp and other private channels, sweetening offers with jaw-dropping compensation deals. In January, Meta postponed a significant AI rollout known as Behemoth, prompting the CEO to spearhead a restructured initiative. That led to the creation of a new “superintelligence” lab aimed at building AI systems that could potentially surpass human capabilities.
Around 50 top-tier researchers have reportedly joined this new lab so far. In parallel, Zuckerberg orchestrated a $14.3 billion acquisition of a 49 percent stake in Scale AI, hiring founder Alexandr Wang to help lead Meta’s AI charge.
But the price tag is climbing fast. Meta’s finance chief, Susan Li, told investors on Wednesday that while AI data centers will be its largest infrastructure investment in 2026, “employee compensation in priority areas” would trigger an even sharper rise in expenses next year. That warning came as Meta reported $47.5 billion in quarterly revenue, up 22 percent, and $18.3 billion in profits, a 36 percent jump. The company’s stock rose 10 percent in after-hours trading, pushing its market valuation beyond $1.75 trillion.
Meta isn’t alone in the AI gold rush. Microsoft, which reported $76.4 billion in quarterly revenue (up 17 percent), has also been pouring billions into artificial intelligence. Its partnership with OpenAI has helped bolster its Copilot suite of AI tools, now embedded across Windows and Office products.
Microsoft’s stock rose 7 percent following its earnings release, marking its $4 trillion capitalization threshold. Earlier this year, Nvidia briefly overtook both Microsoft and Apple in market cap to hit the $4 trillion milestone, driven by insatiable demand for its AI chips.
The race for talent mirrors this valuation battle. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, previously revealed that Meta had tried to poach some of his own employees with offers of up to $100 million.
The stakes are getting higher as the race for AI market share intensifies. Zuckerberg himself warned this week that AI “superintelligence” could one day “replace large swaths of society.” For now, he insists Meta aims to build AI that “empowers everyone,” betting on technologies like smart glasses as a future interface between humans and increasingly intelligent digital assistants.
But behind the lofty visions lies a fierce war of attrition. One that is not only reshaping corporate payrolls but also testing the loyalty and valuation of AI’s most promising minds.