Meta AI Division Faces Hiring Freeze Amid Restructuring

Meta has imposed an abrupt hiring freeze across its artificial intelligence division this week as part of a broader restructuring of its “Superintelligence Lab,” according to people familiar with the matter who spoke to The Wall Street Journal (journal reported). The freeze bars both external hiring and internal team transfers unless Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang approves exceptions.The move follows an aggressive hiring push this year in which Meta recruited more than 50 researchers and engineers from rival companies, including OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Apple and Anthropic. That talent war included lavish compensation packages reportedly as large as $100 million for some hires and, by some accounts, a single outsized offer cited in coverage as high as $1.5 billion (report). CEO Mark Zuckerberg even personally contacted targets by email and WhatsApp as the company raced to bring people on board.As part of that push, Meta paid roughly $14 billion for a stake in Scale AI to help bring co‑founder Alexandr Wang into the company as chief AI officer. The company also recruited figures such as former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and Safe Superintelligence co‑founder Daniel Gross — courtship that reportedly included offers to buy stakes in outside ventures — and later hired ChatGPT co‑creator Shengjia Zhao.Meta’s reorganisation triggers leadership exodus

The restructuring has prompted a wave of departures across Meta’s AI teams, raising questions about whether the company can hold onto the researchers it paid dearly to recruit. The New York Times and other outlets report that several senior figures have left in recent months, including Angela Fan (a lead on the Llama model), who moved to OpenAI; Loredana Crisan, vice president of generative AI, who joined Figma as chief design officer; and Joelle Pineau, the former head of AI research, who departed earlier this year for Cohere.

Sources say the departures follow disappointing results from Meta’s April model releases: the company reportedly abandoned its prior “Behemoth” frontier model and reset development (NYT reported). That setback helped trigger the reorganisation and prompted leadership changes, including the dissolution of the AGI Foundations team that had overseen the project.Adding to the upheaval, new AI leadership has begun interviewing existing staff about new roles, creating uncertainty among long‑time employees. Former OpenAI researcher Shengjia Zhao has taken a prominent role in reshaping teams and assessing who will stay in the reorganised structure.Under the new plan, Meta’s AI division is split into four groups focused on superintelligence research, AI products, infrastructure, and long‑term exploration projects. Industry analysts say the move mirrors past Meta pivots — notably the metaverse effort — where heavy hiring was followed by rapid restructuring when results fell short.

Investor concerns mount over Meta’s AI spending spree

The hiring freeze appears driven in part by growing investor scrutiny of Meta’s rapidly rising AI costs and whether those investments will pay off. Morgan Stanley analysts warned in an August 18 research note that the lavish, stock‑based compensation packages used to recruit AI talent could constrain the company’s ability to return capital to shareholders through buybacks.Meta’s capital expenditures for the year have been reported to approach $72 billion, driven largely by spending on AI data centers, infrastructure, and researcher salaries. That scale of investment has contributed to pressure on tech stocks as investors question whether the company’s superintelligence ambitions will generate proportional returns in the near term. The temporary freeze signals an effort to rein in costs while consolidating fragmented AI teams and efforts.The timing comes as the broader tech industry faces pressure to show tangible results from AI spending. While Meta’s ads business has seen benefits from AI, the company’s pursuit of longer‑term superintelligence research remains speculative, creating tension between short‑term financial discipline and ambitious long‑term goals.A Meta spokesperson described the move as “basic organizational planning” following the hiring spree and annual budgeting planning exercises, saying the pause will give the board and leadership time to reassess priorities. What to watch next: whether hiring reopens after the company’s yearly budgeting exercises and how the reorganisation reshapes product timelines and research teams.