Three former OpenAI employees moved to Meta, where they did not receive the sky-high bonus that their ex-employer Sam Altman recently told them about.
In fact, one of them, Lucas Baer, quoted the words of his former boss «fake news». It is interesting how OpenAI will react now and how this information will affect the intentions of the remaining potential defectors, who are probably already mentally lining up for the coveted $100 million.
According to Wccftech In November, Lucas Baer and two of his colleagues, Alexander Kolesnikov and Xiaohua Zhai, joined OpenAI to open the company’s Zurich office. The other day, Baer wrote in X that he and his colleagues had joined Meta. Interestingly, the trio had previously worked at Google DeepMind. Baer says that neither he, nor Kolesnikov, nor Zhai were paid $100 million for signing the contract.
hey all, couple quick notes:
1) yes, we will be joining Meta.
2) no, we did not get 100M sign-on, that’s fake news.Excited about what’s ahead though, will share more in due time!
cc @__kolesnikov__ and @XiaohuaZhai.
— Lucas Beyer (bl16) (@giffmana) June 26, 2025
«Hi everyone, a few quick notes: 1) yes, we will join Meta 2) no, we did not receive 100 million for entering, this is fake news. Looking forward to the future, I’ll share more information later!».
As you can see, Lucas Baer didn’t say much about the transition to his new job, but promised more details later. Commenters began to cheerfully «catch the newly minted Meta employee. In particular, they asked if the bonus was $99,999,999, or how it felt to be betrayed «for nothing». Lucas replied: «Thank God Sam let me know I was underestimated».
Earlier, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that his employees offer $100 million in Meta bonusesThe cost of a yearly contract is comparable to the cost of signing one. But the steadfast employees stay because OpenAI supposedly has better prospects and more interesting work. However, it seems that $100 million is not needed to move to Meta.