Meta Secures AI Prodigy Andrew Tulloch in a Whopping $1.5B Deal
In a remarkable testament to the escalating AI talent war in Silicon Valley, Meta has successfully onboarded Andrew Tulloch, the co-founder of Mira Murati’s AI startup, Thinking Machines Lab. This bold move is a result of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s relentless pursuit of the machine learning maestro, with a reported compensation package worth a staggering $1.5 billion over a span of six years.
Tulloch made his exit from Thinking Machines Lab public on October 10, 2025, attributing “personal reasons” for his departure from the company he co-founded alongside former OpenAI CTO, Mira Murati. This recruitment comes on the heels of Meta’s unsuccessful bid to acquire the entire startup for $1 billion earlier this year.
After Murati turned down the acquisition proposal, Zuckerberg initiated what industry insiders term as a “full-scale raid” on the 50-person startup, enticing more than a dozen employees with lucrative offers. As per a report by The Wall Street Journal, Meta has reached out to over 100 OpenAI employees in the recent past, successfully bringing at least 10 on board.
Tulloch, with his vast experience from his tenure at OpenAI, where he played a pivotal role in the development of GPT-4, and Meta’s AI Research Group, where he was instrumental in the development of PyTorch, is a valuable addition to Meta’s team. He will be joining Meta’s newly established TBD Labs division, working under the guidance of Chief AI Officer, Alexandr Wang.
This development underscores the fierce competition for AI talent as tech behemoths vie to develop superintelligence capabilities. As industry analysts have noted, “This highlights how personal the battle for human capital has become.”
Source: https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skr56vtpgl