Meta Poaches Apple’s AI Foundation Models Chief Ruoming Pang

Meta’s aggressive push into the AI space just hit a major turning point. In a bold move that’s likely to shake up Silicon Valley, the company has hired Ruoming Pang, the top executive behind Apple’s AI foundation models. It’s a clear signal that the battle for top-tier AI talent is escalating fast.

Pang, who led the Apple Foundation Models (AFM) team, played a critical role in building the AI systems powering features like Genmoji, Priority Notifications, and various on-device intelligence capabilities across Apple’s ecosystem. His departure couldn’t come at a worse time for Apple, just as the company is trying to ramp up its generative AI offerings. And his exit might just be the start. There’s already talk that more people from Apple’s AI division could follow suit, especially with internal restructuring and delays around the much-anticipated next-gen Siri updates causing morale issues.

So, where is Pang heading? He’s joining Meta’s new Superintelligence Labs, a division laser-focused on building artificial general intelligence (AGI). That team is co-led by Alexandr Wang, the former CEO of Scale AI, who recently became Meta’s Chief AI Officer. 

Meta’s not stopping there. They’ve been on a hiring spree, pulling in top researchers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, with some rumored to be getting offers in the tens of millions per year. Mark Zuckerberg isn’t hiding his ambition. He’s building what he calls a “superintelligence team” meant to rival OpenAI and DeepMind head-on.

These moves are upending the AI job market. Compensation for elite researchers has skyrocketed, and the level of access Meta offers to computing power is nearly unmatched. Naturally, this approach hasn’t made them many friends in the Valley. OpenAI’s Mark Chen compared it to “someone breaking into our home and stealing something.” Meta’s CTO, Andrew Bosworth, responded by saying the eye-popping paydays are rare and reserved for key leadership.

Meanwhile, Apple’s position looks increasingly vulnerable. Insiders say the company has even thought about licensing third-party models from Anthropic or OpenAI to stay competitive, raising questions about how confident Apple really is in its own tech stack.

With Meta ramping up and Apple’s AI leadership seemingly in turmoil, it’s clear that the next phase of the AI arms race is going to be both unpredictable and intense.