Meta reportedly hires OpenAI researcher Luke Metz for Superintelligence Labs

Metz was expected to start this week, according to the Axios report cited by Times Now. He left OpenAI in 2024 to join Thinking Machines, the startup founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, and returned to OpenAI earlier this year before moving to Meta.

Metz is a prominent AI researcher who has worked across several leading AI labs in recent years, and the switch shows how quickly top AI researchers are moving between rival companies as tech giants compete to build more advanced AI systems, Times Now reported.

Reporting line and Scale AI

Metz will work under Wang, Meta's chief AI officer and head of Meta Superintelligence Labs. Wang joined Meta after its investment in Scale AI, the data and AI evaluation company he co-founded and previously led, Times Now reported.

Meta's June investment in Scale AI was reported at about $14.3 billion by Times of India and Financial Express. Futurism put the deal at $15 billion for a 49% stake and said Scale AI provides data annotation for training AI models but does not build them.

Hiring push and cuts

Meta has used Superintelligence Labs to bring together researchers and engineers working on its next generation of AI models, Times Now reported. It has targeted researchers from Apple, OpenAI, Thinking Machines and other tech companies to accelerate its AI work. The company has been particularly aggressive in expanding its AI team because Zuckerberg wants to strengthen its position in the race for advanced and potentially superintelligent AI, Times Now reported.

The hire follows cuts of about 600 roles in Meta's AI division, Times of India reported. CNBC reported that the cuts targeted legacy AI infrastructure units, the FAIR research group and product roles within Meta Superintelligence Labs, while TBD Labs, the division housing Meta's high-profile AI recruits, was untouched. Meta Superintelligence Labs employed just under 3,000 people after the cuts, Times of India reported.

Wang said in a memo seen by Axios that the downsizing would streamline decision-making: "By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing and have more scope and impact." He also said the cuts did not signal a decrease in investment: "This by no means signals any decrease in investment. In fact, we will continue to hire industry-leading AI-native talent."

Times of India reported Meta spent hundreds of millions of dollars recruiting engineers and researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Apple after the Scale AI investment and Wang's June hiring. Futurism reported that Zuckerberg personally led an earlier hiring spree, offering workers up to $1 billion in multi-year contracts.

Meta says it is continuing to hire for TBD Lab and encouraging laid-off Superintelligence workers to apply for other roles within Meta.