Meta shares hit record $747.90 on Monday amid big AI hiring push. The jump topped the previous high from February, even after Meta cut 5% of its staff labeled "low performers."
Meta is snapping up top AI talent to build its new Superintelligence Labs. The division, led by Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang and AI startup chief Nat Friedman, will focus on AI foundation models and research that aim to exceed human capabilities.
The company spent $14.3 billion to bring Wang’s data annotation startup onboard. It also tried to buy Safe Superintelligence, worth $32 billion, but was turned down by founder Ilya Sutskever. 
Meta’s AI hiring spree has also lured researchers from OpenAI. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Meta dangled signing bonuses as high as $100 million.
Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s CTO, called the talent fight “really incredible and kind of unprecedented in my 20-year career as a technology executive” during a CNBC interview on June 20.
This hiring blitz puts Meta alongside Microsoft and Nvidia, who also hit stock highs Monday, while Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, and Tesla lag behind their peaks from earlier this year.
WATCH: Meta’s AI talent spending spree
Mark Zuckerberg at Meta Connect on Sept. 25, 2024. Photo: Bloomberg/Getty Images
