Apple AI Model Head Reportedly Leaving For Meta

That’s according to a report late Monday (July 7) by Bloomberg News, which notes that this departure is another setback for Apple’s AI project.

Ruoming Pang, the executive in charge of the company’s Apple foundation models team, is leaving the company, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. Pang had joined Apple from Google in 2021, and is the latest high-profile hire for Meta’s new superintelligence group, the sources said.

To land Pang, the sources said, Meta offered a package worth tens of millions of dollars per year. It’s part of a larger hiring spree by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has recruited AI leaders such as Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang, startup founder Daniel Gross and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman.

Also Monday, Meta hired Yuanzhi Li, a researcher from OpenAI, and Anton Bakhtin, who worked on Claude at Anthropic, according to additional sources with knowledge of the matter. Last month, it hired a host of other OpenAI researchers.

PYMNTS wrote about this trend last week, noting that while companies like OpenAI, Anthropic and Thinking Machines were paying large sums for technical staff, “the compensation is far from the eye-watering sums of up to $100 million from Meta.”

OpenAI, Anthropic and Thinking Machines are all paying salaries in the range of $200,000 to $690,000, according to a report by Business Insider,  citing federal filings needed to hire people who require H-1B visas to work in the U.S.

Meta, meanwhile, paid $14.3 billion for a 49% stake in Scale AI, a deal which also saw Wang join the company.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said that Meta is promising signing bonuses of up to $100 million with even bigger yearly compensation packages. But Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s chief technology officer, has said Altman was being “dishonest” by suggesting the nine-figure offer is for “every single person.”

PYMNTS wrote about Apple’s AI struggles last month, noting that the company’s latest product showcase illustrated a philosophy focused more on “measured integration, meticulous design and a deep commitment to user privacy” than “rapid innovation in generative AI.”

“This approach stands in contrast to competitors like Amazon, Google and Microsoft, which are embracing large language models and enterprise-scale AI solutions in aggressive and sometimes experimental ways,” that report added.