In a major victory in the race for top AI talent, Meta has hired Ruoming Pang, who previously led Apple’s Foundation Models (AFM) team, to join its newly formed Superintelligence Labs. Pang’s team at Apple was central to the development of advanced AI systems, including efforts around a next-generation Siri. Bloomberg first reported the move, noting that Meta offered Pang a compensation package worth millions of dollars annually.
His departure marks a significant loss for Apple, which has faced growing pressure to keep pace with rivals like Google and OpenAI. Bloomberg sources also suggest that several engineers from Pang’s former team may be eyeing exits, possibly to follow him to Meta.
Pang’s hire is part of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s aggressive effort to build a “superintelligence” dream team. Meta has been rapidly expanding its AI division by luring researchers from industry giants such as OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic — often with high salaries and access to vast computing power.
Superintelligence Labs is co-led by Alexandr Wang, former CEO of Scale AI and now Meta’s Chief AI Officer. His appointment followed Meta’s sizable investment in Scale AI, which valued the data-labeling company at $29 billion.
In addition to Pang, Meta has recently added other AI experts including Yuanzhi Li from OpenAI and Anton Bakhtin from Anthropic. Both have worked on cutting-edge AI models such as GPT and Claude, according to Bloomberg.
The hiring spree has stirred controversy across the tech world. OpenAI’s chief researcher Mark Chen said Meta’s tactics resemble “someone breaking into our home and stealing something.” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claimed Meta offered some employees $100 million signing bonuses, although he noted that “none of our best people have decided to take them up on that.” Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth pushed back internally, saying, “Look, you guys, the market’s hot. It’s not that hot,” and clarified that such lucrative deals are reserved for a small number of key roles.
Meta’s growing Superintelligence Labs now includes over a dozen AI specialists from competing firms, including Trapit Bansal, Shuchao Bi, Huiwen Chang, Ji Lin, Joel Pobar, Jack Rae, Johan Schalkwyk, Pei Sun, Hongyu Ren, Jiahui Yu, and Shengjia Zhao.
In response to Pang’s departure, Apple has restructured the AFM group under Zhifeng Chen, supported by managers like Chong Wang and Guoli Yin. Pang’s former deputy, Tom Gunter, had also left the company earlier.
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