Meta's Mark Zuckerberg Is Losing Top AI Talent To OpenAI And Anthropic Even As It Shells Out Millions In Salaries: Report

Meta Platforms Inc. is experiencing a talent drain in its AI division, with employees leaving for competitors OpenAI and Anthropic despite offering salaries exceeding $2 million annually. The SignalFire State of Talent Report indicates that Anthropic has an 80% retention rate, significantly higher than Meta's 64%. This talent exodus raises concerns about Meta's ability to achieve its AI goals, especially as CEO Mark Zuckerberg aims to recruit a team for artificial general intelligence. Meta plans to invest $65 billion in AI infrastructure by 2025, but the ongoing loss of talent could hinder these ambitions.

Despite offering salaries in millions annually, Meta Platforms Inc. META is reportedly witnessing a talent drain in its AI division, with employees migrating to competitors OpenAI and Anthropic amid the rising demand for AI expertise.

What Happened: The demand for AI talent is soaring as companies invest billions in AI infrastructure. Despite offering lucrative compensation, Meta, along with other Big Tech companies, is struggling to retain its AI staff, who are being drawn to rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic, according to The SignalFire State of Talent Report – 2025, dated May 20.

The report indicates that Anthropic, with an 80% retention rate, is leading the pack. This figure significantly outperforms the industry’s high turnover rate. Anthropic has excelled at recruiting senior researchers and engineers from top AI talent hubs, including Google GOOGL GOOG, Microsoft MSFT, Amazon AMZN and Stripe, besides Meta.

Meta did not immediately respond to Benzinga’s request for comment

The SignalFire research suggests that Anthropic’s unique culture, which encourages “unconventional thinkers” and offers employees genuine autonomy and flexible work options, could be a key factor in its successful retention rate. Employees say Anthropic fosters open intellectual debate and grants researchers significant autonomy, attracting AI talent who feel constrained by bureaucracy at other companies.

DeepMind is close behind with a 78% retention rate, while OpenAI and Meta are on par with a 67% and 64% retention rate, respectively.

Deedy Das, a venture capitalist at Menlo Ventures and former Google Search staffer, pointed out on X on Tuesday that Meta offers compensation exceeding $2 million per year. Nevertheless, he noted that the company is still losing AI talent to rivals—something he personally observed happen three times in just one week.

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Why It Matters: This talent drain comes at a time when Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is personally spearheading efforts to recruit a “superintelligence” team of around 50 experts to work on artificial general intelligence (AGI). This move was in response to the company’s setbacks in AI innovation.

Notably, in early April, Joelle Pineau, the Vice President of AI research at Meta, decided to step down and leave the company.

It is also reported that Meta is contemplating a $15 billion investment in data-labelling startup Scale AI, which would give Meta a 49% ownership in Scale AI. This proposed deal underscores the importance Meta places on AI innovation and talent acquisition.

However, the ongoing talent exodus to rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic raises questions about Meta’s ability to achieve its ambitious AI goals at a critical point, as the company plans to spend $65 billion on AI infrastructure in 2025.

Meta holds a momentum rating of 86.41% and a growth rating of 92.74%, according to Benzinga's Proprietary Edge Rankings. The Benzinga Growth metric evaluates a stock’s historical earnings and revenue expansion across multiple timeframes, prioritizing both long-term trends and recent performance.

Meta stock surged 15.84% on a year-to-date basis.

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