Apple AI Executive Leaves for Meta in Bold $MM Talent Raid

Key Points

• Apple AI Executive Leaves for Meta in Bold $MM Talent Raid
• Apple’s AI team loses key talent
• Meta offers tens of millions in pay packages
• Zuckerberg doubles down on superintelligence
• Apple struggles to keep pace in the AI race

Apple is once again facing trouble in its AI ambitions. Ruoming Pang, a leading figure behind Apple’s AI foundation models, has left the company to join Meta. According to insiders, Pang’s decision came after Meta offered him a massive compensation package worth tens of millions of dollars annually.

Pang isn’t just any engineer — he’s the one who led Apple’s foundation models team, the backbone of the company’s recent push into generative AI. His departure is a major loss, just weeks after Apple launched “Apple Intelligence“ and opened its models to third-party developers.

Meta has officially confirmed Pang’s hiring. Apple and Pang, however, haven’t issued any public statements.

JUST NOW: APPLE’S TOP AI EXECUTIVE IS LEAVING FOR META’S NEW SUPER INTELLIGENCE GROUP AS PER BLOOMBERG

this is getting a bit crazy now

that means about 15 people have left Google, OpenAI, and now Apple in the past month for Meta…

zucks is cooking up something $META $AAPL pic.twitter.com/0nWzNcpvrq

— amit (@amitisinvesting) July 7, 2025

This move adds to the growing list of AI experts flocking to Meta as Mark Zuckerberg pushes to dominate the future of superintelligent systems.

This kind of talent migration echoes the broader industry shake-up, like Microsoft’s exit from Pakistan and its recent job cuts affecting hundreds in AI and cloud roles. The AI race is pushing companies to pivot fast and pay big.

Exclusive: Apple’s top executive in charge of AI models is leaving for Meta, another setback in the iPhone maker’s struggling AI efforts https://t.co/Q9rBGBZlSG

— Bloomberg (@business) July 7, 2025

Zuckerberg’s AI Superteam Is Growing Fast

Meta is not slowing down. Ruoming Pang now joins an elite group that includes former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang, and AI startup founder Daniel Gross. The company has also scooped up talent from OpenAI and Anthropic, including Yuanzhi Li and Anton Bakhtin.

What’s driving this wave? Meta has made superintelligence its core focus, with plans to build AI systems that match or exceed human-level intelligence. The company has even restructured its AI teams to align better with this vision.

Zuckerberg is personally involved in hiring, sometimes even hosting top AI minds at his homes in Lake Tahoe and Silicon Valley. His recruitment strategy seems to be working.

BREAKING: Apple’s top executive and distinguished engineer in charge of its AI models, Ruoming Pang, has been poached by Meta for its new AI Superintelligence division, sources tell me. https://t.co/liKygeLTrv

— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) July 7, 2025

Meta’s commitment isn’t just about people. The company is pouring tens of billions of dollars into its AI infrastructure this year alone. That includes data centers, custom AI chips, and new research labs.

This massive investment mirrors how companies like Google are facing regulatory challenges. Just recently, Google’s AI summaries drew heat in Europe, leading to a formal EU complaint on AI Overviews.

While Meta spends big, it also faces challenges similar to other players. For example, Cloudflare has recently blocked AI data scrapers, signaling how access to quality training data is becoming a battleground.

Apple’s AI Struggles to Hold Ground

Apple’s challenge isn’t just losing Pang. It’s about retaining momentum in a race where every major tech company is sprinting. While the company introduced “Apple Intelligence” during WWDC and opened up its large language models to developers, the loss of leadership like Pang hits hard.

Pang had been leading a 100-person team that developed the core language models behind Apple’s new AI-powered features. With him gone, there’s growing uncertainty over how Apple will continue building and improving its foundation models.

It’s not the first time Apple has lost major AI talent. Over the past two years, the company has seen several engineers leave for competitors offering more competitive packages and a more open approach to research.

Unlike Meta, Apple remains tight-lipped about its AI ambitions. While Meta publicly shares its AI advancements and hiring strategy, Apple keeps things under wraps. This secrecy might be contributing to the talent exodus.

On the user side, AI adoption continues to grow, driven by new services like Perplexity’s Max subscription, which aim to make premium AI accessible to everyone. Apple, however, has yet to announce any similar subscription-based AI tools.

Meta, on the other hand, is setting a clear direction. Its focus on superintelligence, massive compensation, and open research culture is drawing top minds. With Pang onboard, Meta gains another critical piece of the puzzle in its race against OpenAI, Google, and Apple.

As for Apple, the departure raises fresh questions. Can it compete in the AI arms race without its top minds?