Meta Recruits Two Senior Apple AI Engineers Following Major Talent Acquisition

Meta Platforms has expanded its AI team by bringing on two senior engineers from Apple, just weeks after securing a high-profile leader from the iPhone maker’s artificial intelligence group. Mark Lee and Tom Gunter, both previously integral to Apple’s large language model (LLM) development, are the newest additions to Meta’s Superintelligence Labs. Lee has already begun work at Meta, while Gunter is expected to start shortly. Their transition follows the recent departure of Ruoming Pang, who headed Apple’s LLM efforts before being lured to Meta with a compensation package reportedly exceeding $200 million.

This wave of hiring underscores the intensifying competition for AI talent as tech giants scale up their generative AI ambitions. Meta, under CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has prioritized AI across its platforms, pouring resources into infrastructure and aggressively recruiting key players to challenge industry leaders like Google and OpenAI.

The departures from Apple come amid internal uncertainty surrounding its Foundation Models (AMF) team. With leadership evaluating whether to build in-house models or rely on third-party options like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude, the strategic direction of Apple’s AI efforts remains unsettled. The team, which reports to senior AI and software executives, is simultaneously prototyping features using both proprietary and external models for its Siri assistant and upcoming Apple Intelligence offerings.

As Apple navigates this strategic crossroad, Meta has taken advantage of the moment, offering compensation packages far beyond Apple’s typical pay scale. Some engineers at Apple’s AFM unit have been offered raises to dissuade further exits, though these boosts reportedly pale in comparison to Meta’s multimillion-dollar deals. Gunter joins a growing roster of new Meta hires with packages valued above $100 million.

As Meta continues to build out its AI bench with high-profile hires, the competitive landscape is shifting. With Apple still weighing its next steps and rivals racing to secure foundational talent, Meta’s aggressive recruitment strategy could give it a critical edge in defining the next generation of AI tools and infrastructure, well before others find their footing.