Tesla’s robotics division suffered a major blow this week as Milan Kovac, the leader of the company’s Optimus humanoid robot project, left to join Meta. His departure shakes up Tesla’s AI leadership during a fierce industry-wide battle for top talent. Kovac’s exit comes just before Tesla’s planned launch of self-driving robotaxis in Austin, leaving a critical gap in the company’s autonomous technology leadership.
Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been personally recruiting AI professionals through private dinners and conversations. He’s building a new “superintelligence” team focused on creating artificial general intelligence. The company reorganized teams at its headquarters to sit directly next to Zuckerberg’s office. He’s micromanaging the entire recruitment process himself.
The tech industry is seeing massive movement of AI talent between companies. More than half of the researchers who wrote Meta’s original Llama research paper left within six months. At least eight top scientists departed Meta’s FAIR lab in the past year. These professionals are bouncing between rival companies and startups, looking for better opportunities. The departures included Joelle Pineau, Meta’s head of AI research, whose resignation raised serious concerns about FAIR’s future direction.
Meta’s throwing billions of dollars at its AI ambitions. The company plans to invest in Scale AI at a $28 billion valuation. Scale AI’s CEO Alexandr Wang is expected to join Meta’s new AGI team. Meta’s spending up to $65 billion this year on AI infrastructure alone.
Despite the huge investments, Meta’s facing challenges. Its latest Llama 4 release received lukewarm reviews. The company’s struggling to keep up with open-source competitors like China’s DeepSeek. Insiders expressed disappointment with the newest model’s performance. Some employees say the company rushed the release without enough transparency.
Meta’s research structure is changing dramatically. The famous FAIR lab is losing influence to commercial AI groups. The GenAI team, not FAIR, created the newest Llama model. Some insiders describe FAIR as “dying a slow death” as product-focused divisions gain more power.
These aggressive hiring moves and massive investments will likely attract government attention. Recent regulatory probes into other tech giants’ AI partnerships show authorities are watching closely. The competition for specialized AI proficiency has never been this intense. Companies are worried about over-promising what their AI can deliver while racing to hire the best minds in the field.