As the AI race intensifies across Silicon Valley, tech giants are fiercely competing for top talent. Apple’s head of AI foundation models, Ruoming Pang, is set to leave the company and join Meta, according to media reports on Monday.
Meta reportedly offered Pang a lucrative compensation package worth tens of millions of dollars to secure his transition. He will join Meta’s newly established Superintelligence division, a major initiative led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg to advance the company’s AI ambitions.
Pang joined Apple in 2021 after leaving Alphabet and led a 100-member team responsible for building core foundation models powering “Apple Intelligence” and other AI features on Apple devices. However, Apple’s in-house AI models have reportedly underperformed compared to OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta’s offerings.
Recent reports suggest that Apple may adopt AI technologies from Anthropic or OpenAI to enhance the upcoming version of Siri, signaling a potential shift from its self-developed strategy toward external partnerships.
Pang’s departure may further weaken Apple’s internal AI capabilities.
Meta also announced it recently hired Yuanzhi Li from OpenAI and Anton Bakhtin, who worked on Claude at Anthropic. In the past two weeks alone, Meta has reportedly recruited nearly 10 engineers from OpenAI, prompting concerns inside OpenAI and leading to urgent salary adjustments to retain key staff.
