Meta is reportedly finalizing a $15 billion investment to acquire a 49 percent stake in Scale AI, a fast-rising artificial intelligence data labeling company led by 28-year-old CEO Alexandr Wang.
While the deal values Scale AI at $30 billion, nearly double its valuation from just a year ago, industry observers believe the transaction is more about securing Wang himself than the company’s services.
The move is being seen in Silicon Valley circles as an “acquihire” of unprecedented scale—one that positions Mark Zuckerberg not just to acquire a valuable AI partner, but to bring in Wang to lead a significant arm of Meta’s growing AI operations.
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“This is a very expensive acquihire of Alexandr Wang,” tech analyst Ben Thompson writes, echoing the now-conventional wisdom of the yet-to-be-announced investment.
The rumored arrangement is expected to place Wang at the heart of a new Meta AI lab, one tasked with advancing the company’s ambitions in artificial general intelligence.
Wang, who dropped out of MIT and co-founded Scale AI in 2016, has turned the company into a critical player in the global AI ecosystem. Scale supplies data infrastructure to some of the biggest names in AI, including OpenAI, Meta itself, and even the U.S. Department of Defense. The company’s services help train large language models by providing curated, structured datasets—essential fuel for the explosion in generative AI tools.
Unlike many of the AI scientists Zuckerberg has recruited in recent months, Wang isn’t known for cutting-edge research. Instead, he has built a reputation as a savvy operator with strong technical knowledge, proven leadership, and the ability to scale enterprise relationships with both governments and corporations. His profile rose even further after he appeared before the U.S. Congress last year, urging stronger national investment in AI development.
But that very distinction—Wang’s identity as a business strategist rather than a deep-learning scientist—has fueled speculation that Meta’s interest lies in his vision and influence, not just the underlying technology. The structure of the deal mirrors similar AI “acquihire” deals made in recent months by other tech giants. Microsoft, for example, paid a reported $650 million to absorb much of AI startup Inflection’s leadership. Google also paid $2.7 billion to Character.AI in a move widely seen as a talent grab.
Now, Meta’s offer for Scale AI dwarfs those figures, marking it as one of the most expensive hiring plays in tech history.
However, the strategy is not without risk. Meta’s history is littered with big-name acquisitions that eventually ended in talent exits. The co-founders of both Instagram and WhatsApp departed the company years after being brought in, citing clashes with Meta’s corporate structure. Instagram’s Mike Krieger, for instance, now works at Anthropic—an AI rival to Meta.
But Zuckerberg’s conviction that AI is the next frontier appears to be driving his move. With the metaverse struggling to deliver immediate returns, Meta has shifted its priorities toward building foundational infrastructure and teams for AI dominance. Bringing Wang into the fold is seen as a strategic step in that direction.
Whether the deal results in long-term synergy or another high-priced departure is for the future to tell. But what’s certain is that Alexandr Wang, a relatively quiet figure outside tech circles until now, is set to become one of the most influential names in the AI race—courtesy of one of the boldest moves in Meta’s history.