Meta reportedly attempted to acquire Safe Superintelligence, the AI startup co-founded by former OpenAI Executive Ilya Sutskever, in a deal that would have valued the company at $32 billion. According to sources, the acquisition bid and an offer to hire Sutskever were both declined. Following this, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg turned his focus to Daniel Gross, CEO of Safe Superintelligence and Co-Founder of venture capital firm NFDG, along with Nat Friedman, the former GitHub CEO. Both Gross and Friedman will now join Meta and are expected to work under Alexandr Wang, who recently came onboard after Meta invested $14.3 billion in Scale AI. As part of the arrangement, Meta will also acquire a stake in NFDG. “We will share more about our superintelligence effort and the great people joining this team in the coming weeks,” a Meta spokesperson stated.
The move is part of Meta’s ongoing efforts to strengthen its AI division amid a highly competitive talent market. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman noted in a podcast that Meta has offered signing bonuses up to $100 million to attract AI talent, though he claimed, “None of our best people have decided to take them up on that.” Meanwhile, Gross brings a history of AI leadership from his time at Apple and Y Combinator, while Friedman led GitHub after Microsoft’s acquisition. The status of NFDG’s investment portfolio remains unclear as the Meta deal progresses.
