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Meta Poaches Apple AI Leader, Deepening Industry Talent Battle

Apple is reorganizing its foundation models group under new leadership after delay-driven setbacks triggered departures to Meta’s Superintelligence Labs.

People walk past an Apple logo at an Apple store in Paris, France, April 23, 2025. REUTERS/Abdul Saboor/ File Photo
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Overview

  • Ruoming Pang, who led Apple’s 100-person foundation models team, is joining Meta’s Superintelligence Labs with a multimillion-dollar annual offer.
  • Apple has placed its foundation models unit under Zhifeng Chen and shifted to a distributed management structure following Pang’s exit.
  • Meta has also recruited OpenAI’s Yuanzhi Li and Anthropic’s Anton Bakhtin as part of its broader AI investment strategy.
  • The departures come after Apple postponed Siri enhancements promised at WWDC 2024 and restructured its AI efforts under Craig Federighi and Mike Rockwell.
  • Reports of low morale and talks of further departures underscore challenges in Apple’s push to build AI capabilities in-house.