Microsoft looks to poach AI talent from Meta AI, offering up to $250 million packages

Microsoft is intensifying its push for artificial intelligence dominance by aggressively recruiting top engineers and researchers from Meta, offering multimillion-dollar compensation packages to lure them away.

According to internal documents and sources cited by Business Insider, the software giant has created a list of its most-wanted Meta employees, detailing their names, locations and roles, with targeted teams including Reality Labs, GenAI Infrastructure and Meta AI Research. The recruitment effort is backed by a new fast-track hiring process that allows recruiters to flag “critical AI talent”, prompting senior executives to respond with Microsoft’s top offer within 24 hours.

The move comes as competition for AI talent reaches unprecedented levels. Meta has reportedly offered pay packages as high as $250 million to some AI researchers, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claiming the company has dangled $100 million signing bonuses to his engineers.

Microsoft is aiming to match such offers, even beyond its standard pay ranges. Internal pay guidelines seen by Business Insider show the company’s top-tier packages can include salaries exceeding $400,000, on-hire stock awards worth nearly $2 million, annual stock grants of around $1.5 million and annual cash bonuses of up to 90%. In competitive cases involving elite AI talent, even higher payouts are possible.

The recruitment drive is being led by two of Microsoft’s AI divisions: Microsoft AI, headed by former Google DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, and CoreAI, overseen by former Meta engineering head Jay Parikh. Both teams have dedicated recruiters and compensation consultants to secure high-value hires.

Microsoft’s aggressive talent hunt follows a year of significant organisational change, including around 9,000 job cuts globally, as the company reallocates resources towards AI. Despite these layoffs, executives have said overall headcount will remain flat, indicating a strategic reshuffle rather than a reduction.

With Microsoft’s market valuation nearing $4 trillion, fuelled in part by its AI investments, the competition for top-tier talent is set to remain fierce as industry leaders race to secure the engineers and researchers driving the next wave of generative AI breakthroughs.