Mark Zuckerberg has dramatically reset the market for blue-chip AI builders by offering multibillion-dollar talent packages, further complicating the government’s ability to stack its technology bench. Meta CEO is luring top talent from OpenAI and other tech companies with offers that can top $100 million in total compensation for the first year alone.
Meta’s top-tier pay packages for AI researchers can reach up to $300 million over four years. The talent derby has sent compensation soaring across AI, as rivals scramble to keep top talent and entice others not to flirt with Meta and other suitors. This is partly a continuation of an ongoing recruiting war — OpenAI built its lab with massive compensation packages.
The U.S. government is struggling to recruit top researchers and scientists, while China can command top talent to work on government projects. Zuckerberg’s biggest single bet was investing $14 billion in Scale AI, bringing co-founder Alex Wang to Meta as chief AI officer. Eleven other new AI star hires were listed in Zuckerberg’s internal memo announcing Meta Superintelligence Labs.
OpenAI is enjoying ramping growth, with annual recurring revenue reaching $10 billion and projecting sales of up to $174 billion in 2030. Anthropic, a rival AI company, has hit a pace of $4 billion in revenue annually. Zuckerberg is pouring massive spending into making sure Meta remains a dominant AI player.
The talent raid has sparked a new layer of drama and next-level economics for the biggest companies racing to win the AI wars. The government’s ability to recruit top talent is being threatened by lucrative offers from tech giants like Meta. As investors predict that leading AI companies will do hundreds of billions in revenue per year, the bidding war is expected to intensify.
Source: https://www.axios.com/2025/07/03/ai-salaries-meta-openai-zuckerberg-altman