{"id":11302,"date":"2025-07-21T17:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T17:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/11302\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T17:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T17:02:08","slug":"abel-founder-claims-meta-offered-1-25-billion-over-four-years-to-ai-hire-person-still-said-no-despite-equivalent-of-312-million-yearly-salary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/11302\/","title":{"rendered":"Abel founder claims Meta offered $1.25 billion over four years to AI hire \u2014 &#8216;person still said no&#8217; despite equivalent of $312 million yearly salary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Abel founder and enfant terrible of the algorithmic age, Daniel Francis, is incredulous at the remuneration offers being punted by the likes of Meta. On Sunday, Daniel told his throng of social media followers that Meta had offered a potential hire $1.25 billion. The sum was for a four-year stint, admittedly. Despite the 10-figure lure, which would mean over $300 million a year, the potential hire didn\u2019t take the bait.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Update: was informed of a $1.25 billion offer for four years, new highest I&#8217;ve seenguys what the hell is going on https:\/\/t.co\/n5vDZ7Dl5y<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cantworkitout\/status\/1947012850293125304\" data-url=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cantworkitout\/status\/1947012850293125304\" target=\"_blank\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">July 20, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The above Tweet is actually an update to one Daniel floated into the X-abyss this weekend, suggesting that Meta was fishing for a high-caliber AI auteur armed with a $1 billion incentive. Whatever the case, \u201cPerson said no, btw,\u201d Daniel added, without embellishment.<\/p>\n<p>To his rhetorical question about \u201cwhat the hell is going on,\u201d Daniel didn\u2019t take too long to give one of his followers an answer, though. When someone raised the obvious valuation comparison, where hires are starting to attract \u2018IP style money,\u2019 Daniel said, \u201cIP is in people\u2019s heads [right now].\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You may like<\/p>\n<p>Francis, whose startup uses AI to build police reports from body cam footage and dispatch call data, shot to internet notoriety in 2023 when he pretended to be a disgruntled Twitter worker fired by Elon Musk. After fooling multiple outlets into believing his story, he was hired by Musk to join the company.<\/p>\n<p>Billion dollar contract is no one-off<\/p>\n<p>The headlining employment contract worth $1.25 billion isn\u2019t unusual, according to several posters who replied to Daniel. AI researcher <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/tszzl\/status\/1947016345415307463\" target=\"_blank\" data-url=\"https:\/\/x.com\/tszzl\/status\/1947016345415307463\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" rel=\"nofollow\">Roon<\/a>, who is believed to have previously worked at OpenAI, stated that he\u2019s heard of higher offers being made. \u201cIt\u2019s not that crazy when you think of it like an acquihire,\u201d he stated, in an explanation which dovetails with Daniel\u2019s highlighting of valuable IP being in folk\u2019s heads in the current AI era.<\/p>\n<p>After another seeming serious contribution, attempting <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/TenreiroDaniel\/status\/1947059562986848435\" target=\"_blank\" data-url=\"https:\/\/x.com\/TenreiroDaniel\/status\/1947059562986848435\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" rel=\"nofollow\">to confirm<\/a> that \u201cThe highest you\u2019ve heard is regular to me,\u201d the thread began to turn into something of a farce. Posters moved on to trying to outdo each other with tales of infinite wealth, only matched by their levels of silliness.<\/p>\n<p>AI biz CEO recently admitted nine-figure signing bonuses are real<\/p>\n<p>Though we must take some of the claims above with a dash of salt, there are undoubtedly some extremely lucrative employment contracts being offered to established and rising AI execs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"newsletter-form__strapline\">Get Tom&#8217;s Hardware&#8217;s best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n<p>A case of extreme remuneration in the AI field came straight from the CEO\u2019s mouth last month. In June, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that Meta was attempting to swipe OpenAI technical staff with <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tomshardware.com\/tech-industry\/artificial-intelligence\/sam-altman-says-meta-is-offering-obscene-usd100m-bonuses-to-poach-ai-employees-and-even-bigger-salaries-openai-ceo-says-none-of-our-best-people-decided-to-take-them-up-on-that\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.tomshardware.com\/tech-industry\/artificial-intelligence\/sam-altman-says-meta-is-offering-obscene-usd100m-bonuses-to-poach-ai-employees-and-even-bigger-salaries-openai-ceo-says-none-of-our-best-people-decided-to-take-them-up-on-that\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">$100 million signing bonuses<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that,\u201d asserted Altman.<\/p>\n<p>Follow <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqLAgKIiZDQklTRmdnTWFoSUtFSFJ2YlhOb1lYSmtkMkZ5WlM1amIyMG9BQVAB\" target=\"_blank\" data-url=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqLAgKIiZDQklTRmdnTWFoSUtFSFJ2YlhOb1lYSmtkMkZ5WlM1amIyMG9BQVAB\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tom&#8217;s Hardware on Google News<\/a> to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Abel founder and enfant terrible of the algorithmic age, Daniel Francis, is incredulous at the remuneration offers being&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-11302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}