How Mark Zuckerberg may have proved Sam Altman's $100 million 'joining bonus' statement WRONG with hiring of Apple's top AI exec

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently hired Apple’s head of AI foundation models, Ruoming Pang for his new AI Superintelligence unit. Apple’s head of AI models, Ruoming Pang reportedly left the iPhone maker to work at Meta. Now a new online report reveal the joining bonus Pang received as part of is new job. In a move that may contradict Sam Altman ’s claim that Meta is offering $100 million signing bonuses to lure top researchers, Pang may be receiving tens of millions of dollars per year.

Here’s how much Meta may be paying Ruoming Pang
According to a report by Bloomberg, Meta offered Ruoming Pang, who previously headed Apple's foundation models team, an annual compensation package valued in the "tens of millions of dollars," with some reports even suggesting a multi-year deal exceeding $200 million, encompassing base salary, a substantial signing bonus, and significant equity.

Meta Platforms is reported to be racing to secure top AI talent for its newly created Superintelligence Labs to better compete with rivals including OpenAI, Google and Anthropic. The Facebook and Instagram parent's aggressive hiring for its unified AI initiative has intensified the talent war in Silicon Valley.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s claim vs reality
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has earlier stated that Meta was offering $100 million singing bonuses and much more annual compensation to poach his team. However, Pang’s deal suggests that Meta’s offers may be aggressive but not exaggerated, especially for non-OpenAI hires.

Moreover, Lucas Beyer, one of the three OpenAO reachers hire by Meta, publicly refuted the Altlman’s claim and said that $100 million figure is a ‘fake news’ and joking that he’d been “lowballed.”

Who replaces Ruoming Pang at AppleWith Pang’s departure, the AFM team will now reportedly be headed by Zhifeng Chen. In a change from a structure under Pang where most of the engineers reported to him directly, the report said that there will be a new organizational layout that includes multiple managers reporting to Chen, who will then have engineers reporting to them. Apple’s overall AI strategy is now run primarily by Craig Federighi, Apple’s head of software engineering, and Mike Rockwell, who helped create the Apple Vision Pro headset and now leads engineering for Siri.