Microsoft is going all-in to snatch Meta’s top AI minds, dangling multimillion-dollar bonuses to lure engineers labeled “critical AI talent.” An internal most-wanted list shows precisely who the tech giant is targeting in its escalating talent war.
According to internal documents seen by Business Insider, Microsoft has built a fast-track hiring playbook to compete with Meta’s sky-high offers, including on-hire packages worth millions.
Confidential compensation models for elite AI candidates
The confidential files include a detailed roster of Meta employees in Microsoft’s sights, listing each by name, location, and job title. Additional tabs highlight the company’s focus areas, including Reality Labs, GenAI Infrastructure, and Meta AI Research.
Among the materials is a proprietary “compensation modeler” built to craft individualized pay ranges for those tagged as critical AI talent. Accompanying notes outline the candidate’s background and why they warrant Microsoft’s most competitive offer.
Microsoft AI, led by former Google DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman, and CoreAI, overseen by ex-Meta engineering chief Jay Parikh, both have dedicated recruiting teams to execute these hires. According to Business Insider, Parikh’s own organizational chart shows multiple executives he previously worked alongside at Meta.
Stock awards and bonuses rival Meta’s payouts
Internal pay data show that Microsoft’s most senior engineers can earn annual salaries exceeding $400,000, alongside stock awards of over $1 million. On-hire grants for these roles can reach nearly $2 million, with bonuses climbing as high as 90% of the base pay.
These upper-tier packages are reserved for competitive recruitment scenarios, allowing total compensation to rise into the multimillion-dollar range, placing Microsoft in direct contention with Meta’s richest offers.
The hunter becomes the hunted
In recent months, Meta has swept up senior AI talent from Apple, OpenAI, and Anthropic, with its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, offering compensation packages that have set new benchmarks across the industry. His push to assemble a “superintelligence” team has put rival companies on alert.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has publicly criticized the approach, calling it “distasteful.” Now, with Microsoft focusing its own recruitment efforts on Meta’s top AI staff, is the social media titan about to taste its own tactics?
Why Microsoft may want more AI brainpower
Microsoft’s recruitment strategy could be about more than just competing with rivals. A clause in its deal with OpenAI allows the ChatGPT maker to cut off Microsoft’s access to future models if it declares an AGI milestone, a change that could disrupt one of Microsoft’s most valuable technology pipelines.
Bloomberg reports that the clause is now the subject of ongoing renegotiations. But until a successful agreement is secured, building a deeper bench of in-house AI expertise gives Microsoft a safeguard, ensuring it can keep advancing its AI ambitions even if its partnership with OpenAI changes course.
Perplexity has made waves with an unexpected $34.5 billion offer for Google’s Chrome browser. While few expect the deal to go through, the move is being read as a bold signal of the AI company’s ambitions.
