Mira Murati Stands Firm Against Meta’s Massive Buyout Bid

Mark Zuckerberg and Meta recently made a big splash trying to buy Mira Murati’s AI startup, Thinking Machines Lab, with an eye-popping $1 billion offer. But when Murati decided to keep her company independent and turned down the deal, Meta didn’t back off — instead, they launched a full-on talent hunt.

ALSO READ: How These AI Billionaires Built Their Empires!

Sources say Zuckerberg personally reached out to over a dozen employees from Thinking Machines’ 50-person team, hoping to convince some of the top talent to jump ship. One big name on their radar was Andrew Tulloch, a co-founder and key researcher, with some offers reportedly as high as $1.5 billion.

Wired magazine also reported that Thinking Machines Labs had rejected Meta’s lucrative proposal to join its Superintelligence Lab, which included compensation offers ranging between $200 million and $1 billion over several years.

This whole situation shows just how intense the competition is right now among tech giants to lock down the brightest AI minds. And it’s clear they’re ready to open their wallets wide to win the battle for AI supremacy.