Top researcher who quit OpenAI to join Meta calls out Sam Altman for ‘fake news’

Lucas Beyer, a former OpenAI researcher, dismissed Altman’s claims that Meta paid $100 million to the OpenAI employees

Published on: Jun 30, 2025, 08:58:28 IST

By Sanya Jain

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Mark Zuckerberg has poached three of OpenAI’s top researchers for Meta – but contrary to Sam Altman’s claims, they did not get $100 million as a sign-on bonus. Lucas Beyer, a former OpenAI researcher, dismissed Altman’s claims that Meta paid $100 million to the OpenAI employees joining its superintelligence team.

Mark Zuckerberg (L) and Sam Altman (R) are locked in a race over AI. (AP, Reuters)

Beyer took to social media to set the record straight after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claimed that Meta offered his employees bonuses of $100 million to recruit them.

Who are the OpenAI researchers joining Meta?

According to a Wall Street Journal report, the top OpenAI researchers who quit the ChatGPT-maker are Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai. All of them worked out of OpenAI’s Zurich office.

What did Sam Altman say about $100 million bonus?

During an appearance on the Uncapped podcast in mid June, OpenAI’s Altman claimed that Meta “started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team” like “$100 million signing bonuses, more than that (in) compensation per year.”

And how did Lucas Beyer refute this claim?

Lucas Beyer, a former Google employee who had been with OpenAI since 2024, recently quit the AI firm to join Meta. In a post shared on X, he refuted Sam Altman’s claims that he and other top researchers were paid nine figure signing bonuses.

“Hey all, couple quick notes: 1) yes, we will be joining Meta. 2) no, we did not get 100M sign-on, that's fake news,” Beyer posted on X.

In the comments section, he took a direct dig at Altman’s claims - “Thank God Sam let me know I've been lowballed,” Beyer wrote in a tongue-in-cheek response to an X user.

Why has Meta ramped up hiring?

According to Reuters, Meta, once recognized as a leader in open-source AI models, has suffered from staff departures and has postponed the launches of new open-source AI models that could rival competitors like Google, China's DeepSeek and OpenAI.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sanya Jain
Sanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience - from viral videos to human interest copies that spark conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and looking for newsworthy angles to elevate viral posts into meaningful narratives. She was the first one, for example, to cover Narayana Murthy’s remark on 70-hour work weeks that sparked a national conversation. She is equally at ease writing about business leaders as about the common man, about issues of national importance and memes that amuse social media. Sanya enjoys speaking with content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs to transform everyday moments into engaging, slice-of-life stories that resonate with readers. When she is not working, Sanya can be found curled up with a good book. Born and raised in Lucknow, she has spent the last several years in Delhi. She is deeply interested in animal welfare and now spends a lot of her time running after her destructive orange cat.Read More

Get Latest Updates on Trending News Viral News, Video, Photos and Weather Updates of India and around the world