Meta Platforms (META, Financials) is set to bring on Daniel Gross, CEO of Safe Superintelligence, and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman after a failed attempt to acquire the $32 billion AI startup founded by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, according to sources cited by CNBC.
Meta will integrate Gross and Friedman into its AI unit under Alexandr Wang, whom Zuckerberg hired last week alongside a 49% stake in Wang's company, Scale AI. Meta will also take a stake in NFDG, the venture firm co-run by Gross and Friedman.
Gross previously led machine learning efforts at Apple (AAPL, Financials) and co-founded Safe Superintelligence with Sutskever. Friedman served as GitHub's CEO following its acquisition by Microsoft (MSFT, Financials). Their firm NFDG has invested in companies such as Coinbase, CoreWeave and Perplexity, though CNBC said it's unclear what becomes of those holdings under Meta.
Meta's efforts come as major players, including OpenAI, Google and Microsoft, vie to secure top AI engineers. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently claimed Meta offered signing bonuses up to $100 million to poach his staff — offers that were declined.
