Why did Meta suddenly freeze hiring in its AI division?

Meta Platforms has hit pause on hiring within its artificial intelligence division, just months after an aggressive recruitment spree that saw it offering jaw-dropping nine-figure compensation packages. According to The Wall Street Journal, the freeze - effective last week - blocks both external hires and internal transfers unless personally approved by Meta’s newly installed Chief AI Officer, Alexandr Wang.

The decision comes after Meta poached more than 50 top engineers and researchers from rivals like OpenAI, Alphabet, and Apple, with offers reaching as high as $100 million. CEO Mark Zuckerberg even made a direct $1.5 billion pitch to Thinking Machines Lab co-founder Andrew Tulloch, which was declined. On the other hand, Scale AI co-founder Alexandr Wang agreed to join Meta in exchange for a $14 billion stake purchase.

Wall Street, however, is wary. Analysts at Morgan Stanley warned that soaring compensation costs could eat into Meta’s stock buyback capacity and dampen shareholder returns - concerns that helped fuel a recent slide in tech stocks amid scrutiny of massive AI-related infrastructure spending.

A Meta spokesperson described the freeze as “basic organizational planning” following the restructuring of its Superintelligence Labs. The larger backdrop: only about 2,000 researchers worldwide have the expertise to build foundational AI models, making talent the hottest commodity in the race toward artificial general intelligence. With global firms investing more than $250 billion in AI infrastructure through 2026, the competition to secure top talent is only set to intensify.