Meta itself has lost a lot of its top AI talent over the years, who’ve either left to start their own companies or to join rivals like OpenAI, the former Meta AI employee told Forbes. “A lot of people left to go to OpenAI…. This is Mark trying to undo the loss of talent,” they said.

The hiring spree and restructuring come as pressure mounts on Zuckerberg to justify Meta's massive capital spend on AI infrastructure

After a poaching frenzy that’s brought in talent from rival firms like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, Zuckerberg announced a team of nearly two dozen researchers in an internal memo.