🚨 Meta Just Poached Three OpenAI Researchers: Is Zuckerberg Betting $65 Billion on a Comeback?

Meta (formerly Facebook) is going all-in on AI—again. In a stunning move that's shaking Silicon Valley, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has successfully recruited three elite researchers from OpenAI, signaling a major shift in Meta's AI strategy.

🧠 Is this a new AI arms race—or a survival move?

🔍 What Happened?
According to The Wall Street Journal, Meta hired:

Lucas Beyer

Alexander Kolesnikov

Xiaohua Zhai

These three researchers helped define OpenAI’s Zurich office and had a long-standing track record from Google DeepMind. Zuckerberg personally reached out to close the deal—yes, he did the recruiting himself.

While rumors swirled about $100M+ signing bonuses, Beyer has since denied them via X (formerly Twitter), calling it “fake news.”

"We are building AGI responsibly and openly," said Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth, signaling Meta’s ambition to lead in artificial general intelligence.

💰 The $65 Billion AI Playbook
Meta is reportedly planning to spend $65 billion this year on AI, according to WSJ.

Here's where that money is going:

⚙️ Scale AI stake: $14B investment, including poaching Scale CEO Alexandr Wang

💻 GPU infrastructure: Training massive LLMs like Llama 3 and future Llama 4

🧑‍💻 AI talent war: Building internal teams like GenAI Research, FAIR, and Reality Labs AI

Meta’s approach mirrors OpenAI’s moonshot ambition—except with more Instagram ads.

🧩 AI Feature Rollouts: From Hype to Utility
Amid this hiring spree, Meta rolled out new AI-driven features across its platforms:

🟢 WhatsApp AI Summaries: The new “Catch Up” feature gives smart recaps of unread chats.
📖 Details here → TechCrunch article

⚖️ Legal win: Meta scored a recent victory in an author-led lawsuit over copyrighted training data.
📰 Source → Reuters

🔥 Tensions at OpenAI?
Zuckerberg’s move hasn’t gone unnoticed.

OpenAI insiders reportedly called this a “personal attack,” and CEO Sam Altman has tried to downplay the event, stating none of OpenAI’s “best people” left (Wired).

Still, losing Zurich’s leadership team in one sweep is no small event.

📈 What This Means for Developers
Whether you’re building apps, AI agents, or dreaming of AGI, here’s what this means for us:

Meta is serious: Don’t sleep on Llama 3 and future Llama 4+.

OpenAI's dominance is no longer guaranteed.

The AI talent war will shape the tools we use in the next decade—and the ethical frameworks around them.

Written by:
Ashikur Rahman Nazil | YouTube: NazilGO | Twitter