Meta Superintelligence Labs has hired Luke Metz, an early ChatGPT researcher at OpenAI, as competition for artificial intelligence specialists intensifies.
Reports placed Metz under Alexandr Wang, Scale AI’s former leader and Meta’s AI chief.
Rapid moves connect three leading laboratories
Metz describes himself as a researcher from the original OpenAI team behind the low-key research preview that became ChatGPT. He previously worked at Google Brain.
Axios reported Metz left OpenAI in 2024 to join Thinking Machines Lab, founded by former OpenAI technology chief Mira Murati.
His tenure there was brief. Fortune reported in January 2026 that Metz would return to OpenAI with co-founder Barret Zoph and founding member Sam Schoenholz. Simo said Zoph would report to her, while Metz and Schoenholz would report to Zoph.
Metz is now moving again after several former Thinking Machines colleagues joined Meta.
Meta commits billions to recruitment
Meta invested $14.3 billion for a 49 percent stake in Scale AI and selected Wang to lead Meta Superintelligence Labs. Five members of Murati’s founding team joined Meta, while three returned to OpenAI and another moved to Elon Musk’s xAI.
Reported compensation has also reached exceptional levels. Thinking Machines co-founder Andrew Tulloch reportedly accepted a $1.5 billion package covering six years at Meta. The Next Web said the figure, if accurate, would make him technology’s most expensive individual hire.
OpenAI chief Sam Altman said Meta offered $100 million bonuses to its employees. Meta reported second-quarter 2026 revenue of $60.8 billion, representing 28% annual growth, according to its investor filing.
Hiring surge fails to expand workforce
Recruiter Sam Jones analyzed LinkedIn Talent Insights data through August 2026 and found Meta hired 778 research scientists during the year. However, 785 researchers departed, producing a net decline of seven.
Jones measured Meta’s attrition rate at 19 percent, the highest among four frontier laboratories examined. Meta also had 1,838 open research positions when the research was conducted.
Jones described the imbalance by saying, “Meta ran the most expensive treadmill in the industry — 778 on, 785 off — proving that in this market, hiring is the easy half.”
Researchers left Meta for Microsoft AI, Nvidia and OpenAI while Meta recruited talent from Amazon, Scale AI and universities. OpenAI hired Ruoming Pang, who had overseen AI infrastructure for Meta Superintelligence Labs, according to a February report from The Information cited by Reuters.
That move came seven months after Meta recruited Pang from Apple with compensation Bloomberg valued above $200 million.
Meta released Muse Spark on April 8 as the first model from its recently established laboratory. The model supports Meta AI across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Ray-Ban eyewear. Meta’s research workforce remains near its earlier size.
