Lucas Beyer, a former OpenAI researcher, dismissed Altman’s claims that Meta paid $100 million to the OpenAI employees
Mark Zuckerberg has poached three of OpenAI’s top researchers for Meta – but contrary to Sam Altman’s claims, they did not get $100 million as a sign-on bonus. Lucas Beyer, a former OpenAI researcher, dismissed Altman’s claims that Meta paid $100 million to the OpenAI employees joining its superintelligence team.
Beyer took to social media to set the record straight after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claimed that Meta offered his employees bonuses of $100 million to recruit them.
Who are the OpenAI researchers joining Meta?
According to a Wall Street Journal report, the top OpenAI researchers who quit the ChatGPT-maker are Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai. All of them worked out of OpenAI’s Zurich office.
What did Sam Altman say about $100 million bonus?
During an appearance on the Uncapped podcast in mid June, OpenAI’s Altman claimed that Meta “started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team” like “$100 million signing bonuses, more than that (in) compensation per year.”
And how did Lucas Beyer refute this claim?
hey all, couple quick notes:
1) yes, we will be joining Meta.
2) no, we did not get 100M sign-on, that’s fake news.Excited about what’s ahead though, will share more in due time!
cc @__kolesnikov__ and @XiaohuaZhai.
— Lucas Beyer (bl16) (@giffmana) June 26, 2025
Lucas Beyer, a former Google employee who had been with OpenAI since 2024, recently quit the AI firm to join Meta. In a post shared on X, he refuted Sam Altman’s claims that he and other top researchers were paid nine figure signing bonuses.
“Hey all, couple quick notes: 1) yes, we will be joining Meta. 2) no, we did not get 100M sign-on, that’s fake news,” Beyer posted on X.
In the comments section, he took a direct dig at Altman’s claims – “Thank God Sam let me know I’ve been lowballed,” Beyer wrote in a tongue-in-cheek response to an X user.
Why has Meta ramped up hiring?
According to Reuters, Meta, once recognized as a leader in open-source AI models, has suffered from staff departures and has postponed the launches of new open-source AI models that could rival competitors like Google, China’s DeepSeek and OpenAI.
The article originally appeared on Hindustan Times
