Meta Freezes AI Hiring After Blockbuster Spending Spree

Meta Platforms has frozen hiring in its artificial-intelligence division after spending months scooping up 50-plus AI researchers and engineers, according to people familiar with the matter.

PREMIUM The hiring freeze, which went into effect last week and coincides with a broader restructuring of the group,(REUTERS)

The hiring freeze, which went into effect last week and coincides with a broader restructuring of the group, also prohibits current employees from moving across teams inside the division. The duration of the freeze wasn’t communicated internally.

There might be exceptions to the block on external hires, but they would need permission from Meta’s chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, the people said.

A Meta spokesperson confirmed the freeze, characterizing it as “basic organizational planning: creating a solid structure for our new superintelligence efforts after bringing people on board and undertaking yearly budgeting and planning exercises.”

While all of the top AI companies have hired aggressively this year, Meta has most often pushed the pace of the talent war, offering prized researchers pay packages worth nine figures and using so-called reverse acquihires to strip startups of key leaders. Analysts have voiced concerns about the scale of leading tech firms’ investments, with some singling out Meta’s fast-rising stock-based compensation costs as a potential threat to shareholder returns.

The recent restructuring inside Meta divides its AI efforts into four teams: one working on superintelligence, called TBD Lab, that houses many of the new hires; a second working on AI products; a third working on infrastructure; and a fourth dedicated to projects with a longer time horizon and more exploration, the people said. The latter, called Fundamental AI Research, remains largely untouched in the reorganization.

The four groups sit within the umbrella of Meta Superintelligence Labs, a name that reflects Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg’s recent emphasis on building computer systems that can outperform the smartest humans on cognitive tasks. The Information previously reported some details of Meta’s AI reorganization.

Previously, Meta had a team called AGI Foundations, which worked on the latest versions of the company’s large language models, known as Llama. The team drew criticism from executives this spring after the release of the latest Llama models underperformed expectations. It was dissolved as part of the reorganization.

At least three members of the previous AGI Foundations team said internally that they were leaving the company around the time of Meta’s latest vesting date, Aug. 15, according to internal posts viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

It was after the Llama model release in April that Zuckerberg became personally involved in recruiting AI researchers. He approached employees of OpenAI, Google DeepMind and other labs with email overtures and WhatsApp messages that quickly led to offers that in some cases reached $100 million in total compensation. His offer to one researcher—Thinking Machines Lab co-founder Andrew Tulloch—could have been worth as much as $1.5 billion. (Tulloch declined the offer.)

To spearhead Meta’s AI efforts, Zuckerberg hired Scale AI co-founder Wang, securing him by paying $14 billion for a stake in his company. He also brought on former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Safe Superintelligence co-founder Daniel Gross, whose courtship involved Meta offering to buy a stake in their venture firm.

As of mid-August, Meta had successfully hired more than 20 researchers and engineers from OpenAI for the effort, at least 13 from Google, three from Apple, three from xAI and two from Anthropic for a total of 50-plus new employees.

Mounting concern from investors over the costs of the tech giants’ AI buildout has played a role in this week’s selloff of technology stocks. In an Aug. 18 research note, analysts at Morgan Stanley warned that the fast-rising stock-based compensation offered by Meta and Google to lure AI talent could threaten their ability to return capital to shareholders via buybacks. Lavish spending on talent, the analysts wrote, “has the potential to drive AI breakthroughs with massive value creation or could dilute shareholder value without any clear innovation gains.”

Write to Meghan Bobrowsky at meghan.bobrowsky@wsj.com

News / Technology / Meta Freezes AI Hiring After Blockbuster Spending Spree