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Zuckerberg's total pay offers to poach AI talent in 2025 was higher than box office gross of Avengers, Superman
Mark Zuckerberg has opened the purse strings in 2025 as Meta aggressively pushes to acquire talent for AI development, often from companies like OpenAI, Apple.
Mark Zuckerberg is set on Meta getting the best talent for AI development as the tech race heats up. In 2025, Zuckerberg has reportedly sent out a slew of offers, not all of which were accepted, trying to poach talent from notable players in the field like OpenAI, and other tech giants like Apple.
He has not ignored startups as well, offering eye-watering pay packages for the best minds to join Meta's AI team. In fact, the total amount in pay packages that he has offered this year goes well beyond the box office collection of popular blockbusters like Avengers and Superman.
Here's a look at how much Zuckerberg offered to attract AI talent.
Zuckerberg offers billions to poach AI talent
It's not even a millions game anymore for Zuckerberg, who is currently the world's third richest man.
He reportedly offered $1 billion to poach one staffer from Mira Murati's AI startup, Thinking Machines Lab. The co-founder of the venture, Andrew Tulloch, was reportedly offered $1.5 billion to join Meta, but he refused.
Zuckerberg has also tried to get others from there with packages ranging from $200 million to $500 million over a four-year period. Notably, the billion dollar package is also a multi-year offer. However, the Meta head assured that those taking up the offers would get $50-100 million in the first year itself.
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He also made offers in the ballpark of $300 million, over four years, to OpenAI talent, Wired reported.
Showing aggression, and no signs of stopping, Zuckerberg also went after a 24-year-old AI researcher, Matt Deitke. When he turned down a $125 million offer, over four years, to join Meta, Zuckerberg personally met him and sweetened the deal to $250 million.
He's also reportedly giving a $200 million multi-year package to Ruoming Pang, the former Apple AI head.
Together, Zuckerberg offered around a whopping $2.6 billion (if we take $350 mn to be the median offered to other Thinking Machines Lab staffers).
How Zuckerberg's offer compares to Hollywood hits?
Zuckerberg's offer far outdoes the performance of the best of Marvel and DC films. These mega budget projects with ensemble casts often rake in a lot of money at the box office, and ‘Avengers: Endgame’ or ‘Superman’ (2025) are no exceptions.
However, 'Avengers: Endgame' made $858.37 million in the US box office, while ‘Superman’ has now crossed $300 million. Even if we were to add the two, it would come to around $1.16 billion – well shy of the mark by a billion.
Notably, Zuckerberg's pay package offers have been calculated not just on the basis of salary, but equity and other components. Meta is committed to spending $72 billion on capital expenditures in 2025.
