Elon Musk reveals that senior Meta engineers have moved to xAI without needing “insane” compensation

Elon Musk has revealed that a number of senior engineers at Meta have transitioned to his AI venture, xAI, despite modest initial compensation packages.

Musk predicted that in the long run, xAI’s valuation may exceed Meta’s, and highlighted the firm’s tendency to award substantial raises to its top performers. He also pointed out that these engineers joined without premium entry-level packages, placing their faith in xAI’s potential growth.

Many strong Meta engineers have and are joining xAI and without the need for insane initial comp (still great, but not unsustainably high).

Also, xAI has vastly more market cap growth potential than Meta.

And we are hyper merit-based: do something great and your comp can shift…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 3, 2025

Musk’s comment came in response to an X post indicating that Meta approached upwards of 100 OpenAI employees and successfully onboarded at least ten in a “desperate move.” Recently, Zuckerberg had also disclosed that Shengjia Zhao, the mind behind ChatGPT’s development, has taken on the role of chief scientist at Meta Superintelligence Labs.

Reportedly, other candidates turned down Meta’s offers because they saw OpenAI as closer to true AGI, preferred the speed and flexibility of a smaller team, and didn’t want to work on ad-driven projects.

The user also noted in another post that “no AI lab matches xAI speed with a small team in just two years”.

In its first year, xAI rolled out ten new tools: two chatbots (Grok 2 and Grok Mini), an image generator called Aurora, the Grok Button for quick analysis, a mobile app, Grok 3 with DeepSearch, an uncensored voice mode, Grok 4, a companions feature, and the “Imagine” tool.

Musk’s claims emerge amid intensifying tech talent war

xAI’s swift deployment has impressed industry observers amid an escalating contest among major AI organizations, including OpenAI, Google, and Meta, to attract premier researchers.

Meta has broadened the AI arm and earmarked $14 billion in funding for Scale AI. In June, Meta launched Superintelligence Labs as a research hub designed to convene top experts in the domain.

Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, has claimed that Meta dangled compensation packages reaching $100 million to lure his team, a claim Meta disputes.

According to WIRED, more than ten such recruitment offers were extended to OpenAI staff. In one case, a seasoned researcher was even tapped for a chief scientist position but opted not to accept.
Moreover, any shares or stock options Meta promised to those new hires would become 100% theirs after one year on the job.

However, Anthropic’s employees remained unswayed by Meta’s lavish incentives, according to co-founder Benjamin Mann. He stressed that Anthropic employees prioritize the organization’s mission over compensation.

Cryptopolitan recently reported that Meta and Microsoft collectively saw their market capitalization climb by approximately $550 billion within a single day. This beats Costco’s entire valuation by $140 billion and outpaces Netflix’s market worth by about $50 billion.

In early trades in Europe on Thursday, Meta’s shares surged 12.2% in Frankfurt and Microsoft’s advanced 9% following a modest pullback late Wednesday. That momentum helped push S&P 500 futures up 1% and Nasdaq futures by 1.3% ahead of the U.S. open.

Meta surpassed second-quarter estimates, delivering earnings of $7.14 per share versus a $5.89 consensus, and generating $47.52 billion in revenue against the $44.83 billion forecast. For Q3, the company anticipates revenue in the $47.5 billion to $50.5 billion range, exceeding the consensus view of $46.2 billion.

It also raised its full-year expense guidance to a range of $114 billion–$118 billion, implying a year-over-year cost uptick of roughly 20%–24%.

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