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One of the world's wealthiest persons, Elon Musk, has publicly claimed that his artificial intelligence company, xAI, has been successfully hiring senior engineers from Meta for a long time. The surprising part of this announcement is that he revealed that xAI doesn’t offer them a fat compensation.
This claim highlights that Musk’s AI startup’s appeal rests more on its enormous market cap growth potential and a meritocratic culture than on insane salaries. This claim has pointed out a shift in the high-stakes rivalry between these two competitors, intensifying the global AI competition.
The dispute between these two highly dominant AI companies began when the AI market surged into a new phase of rivalry. Recent reports have highlighted that Meta has attempted to poach over 100 employees from OpenAI and managed to secure at least 10 of them.
In this aggressively competitive environment, Meta’s Superintelligence Lab has come into the limelight for its offering packages ranging from $200 million to $1 billion over multiple years, clarifying the company’s determination to dominate the AI space. Mark Zuckerberg even disclosed that the mind behind ChatGPT, Shengjia Zhao, has joined Meta Superintelligence Labs as chief scientist.
xAI is actively hiring Meta engineers to accelerate its development in artificial intelligence research. Even Meta has been hiring engineers from Apple. Previously, multiple Apple engineers have joined Meta, and the latest reports say the company has been trying to attract Bowen Zhang, a key multimodal AI researcher from Apple.
While Meta's desperate moves stir the tech world, Musk countered these headlines, saying xAI doesn’t need high pay packages to attract engineers from Meta.
On his Twitter (now X), the platform's owner posted, “Many strong Meta engineers have and are joining xAI without the need for insane initial comp.” Instead, he highlighted that the “market cap growth potential” of xAI is greater than Meta, with a “hyper merit-based” system, where compensation significantly increases based on talent and work abilities.
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Meta’s strategy is marked by aggressive compensation, offering employees exceptionally high salaries that can sometimes reach up to $1 billion to poach experienced engineers from rivals like Apple and OpenAI. Currently, the company operates at a large scale with over 75,900 employees, expanding key AI areas like the Superintelligence Lab.
Additionally, this AI behemoth provides equity with stocks to its employees, encouraging retention. These are the primary features that attract engineers and are responsible for its systematic growth.
In contrast, Elon Musk’s AI startup emphasizes a merit-based approach to hiring. Instead of offering an expensive compensation package to employees initially, the company provides competitive but sustainable compensation based on their contribution.
Therefore, xAI attracts talent with the promise of long-term market cap growth rather than immediate financial rewards. This promotes a culture of rapid innovation and impact in the workspace, distinguishing it from Meta’s larger, structured model.
Meta’s multi-hundred-million-dollar hiring packages signal urgency to proceed faster in the AI race. However, Musk’s approach suggests vision and culture matter more than cash. If this trend continues and xAI continues to attract Meta’s engineers with a long-term growth promise, Meta may face a reputational risk.
With this strategy, Meta will gain short-term wins over Apple and other rivals. Still, the company will struggle to sustain loyalty and creativity in the long term if engineers prefer environments with a mission, agility, and upside potential.
Also Read: Meta Launches AI Chatbot in WhatsApp: Violates EU Competition Rules
