Elon Musk Takes Swipe at Mark Zuckerberg, Says xAI Hired Meta Engineers Without Paying ‘Insane Initial Comp’ and His Company Has More Market Cap Growth
Elon Musk took a swipe at Mark Zuckerberg, claiming that his company, xAI, hired engineers from Meta without offering "insane initial comp" to the employees. He further added that xAI had more market cap growth than Meta. This statement comes as Meta kept aggressively hiring top AI talent for its Superintelligence labs.
San Francisco Bay Area, August 6: Elon Musk has taken a swipe at Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg for hiring talent from other companies for his Superintelligence Labs. The tech billionaire who owns xAI said that amid Zuckerberg's hiring attempts, his company was able to lure some of Meta's engineers. Elon Musk also said he hired Meta's employees without paying them huge amounts.
Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have not seen eye to eye for years. The rivalry of these two tech billionaires often comes to the spotlight when they disagree on views or jab at each other. Neither Musk nor Zuck has been active on each other’s platforms for operating their personal accounts. Previously, Elon Musk had repeatedly challenged Mark Zuckerberg in a cage fight. Meet Mira Murati, AI Leader Who Turned Down Mark Zuckerberg’s USD 1 Billion Offer for Her Startup ‘Thinking Machines Lab’.
Elon Musk Saying xAI Hired Meta Engineers and Having More Market Cap
Elon Musk Claims xAI Hired Meta's Engineers Without Paying a Higher Salary
According to a post dated August 3, 2025, Elon Musk claimed that his xAI had hired "strong Meta engineers". He went further by saying, "... without the need for insane initial comp (still great, but not unsustainably high)". In his message, he took a direct jab at Meta and said that xAI had more market cap growth than Mark Zuckerberg's company.
Elon Musk said that his xAI company was "hyper merit-based" and further hinted that the high-performing employees were rewarded better by better compensation with this line - "do something great and your comp can shift substantially higher". This indicated that xAI was working on a performance-based model. Google CEO Sundar Pichai Urges Teams To Boost Productivity, Developer Chief Says ‘Everybody at Google Be More AI-Savvy’.
Meta Hiring Spree for Superintelligence Lab
Meta has begun hiring top talent from rivals such as Google, Apple and OpenAI. Some top engineers have already joined Meta and are leaving these companies. Recently, Mira Murati's Thinking Labs was also targeted by Mark Zuckerberg's company for Superintelligence Labs with a USD 1 billion offer; however, the entire team rejected it. Reports said that despite the denial, Meta tried to give them a lucrative USD 1.5 billion offer.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 06, 2025 07:20 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).