Meta Poaches Apple AI Executive. What It Means for the Tech Stocks.

Meta has reportedly lured AI talent with pay packages worth tens of millions of dollars. (Julien De Rosa/ AFP via Getty Images)

Meta Platforms has made another major hire in its push for artificial-intelligence supremacy, this time poaching one of Apple’s top AI researchers, according to a report Tuesday from The Wall Street Journal.

Ruoming Pang, who previously led Apple’s AI and machine-learning foundation model team, will join Meta’s newly formed Superintelligence Labs unit. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg lured Pang with a pay package worth tens of millions of dollars, the Journal reported.

Meta, the parent of Facebook and Instagram, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meta has gone on a hiring spree over the last month following its $14 billion investment in Scale AI, most notably hiring Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman to lead its Superintelligence Labs.

Friedman wrote Thursday on the social-media platform X that after starting work at Meta, “I’m feeling confident that great things are ahead.”

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Lucrative compensation packages have helped. Zuckerberg has offered pay of up to $100 million for top talent from rival technology companies, the Journal has reported.

Shareholders will want to see a return on the company’s AI investments over the next few years, Wells Fargo analyst Ken Gawrelski told Barron’s, but the spending represents a tiny percentage of Meta’s $1.81 trillion market capitalization.

“When you put it in that context, it actually appears quite rational,” Gawrelski said. He rates Meta stock at Buy with a $783 price target.

For Apple, Pang’s departure is a symptom of its own underwhelming and disjointed AI efforts, analysts at Evercore ISI wrote in a research note Tuesday.

Pang had been responsible for leading a 100-person team focused on developing large-language models to run Apple Intelligence and other AI features, according to Evercore. But Apple has been overhauling the company’s management team and exploring the use of third-party AI models to power Siri.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Losing Pang and shifting resources around in its AI efforts isn’t the end of the world for the tech goliath, Evercore argued.

“We think Apple is remaining prudently flexible and cost conscious with its approach to AI, which preserves capital and optionality to explore various monetization options,” the analysts wrote.

The firm maintains an Outperform rating and a $250 price target for Apple.

Investors also seemed nonplussed by the news. Apple stock was up 0.1% to $210.20 in premarket trading, while Meta shares were rising 0.5% to $721.65.

Write to Nate Wolf at nate.wolf@barrons.com