‘Scared’ of Mark Zuckerberg offers, OpenAI gives special one-time bonus to some employees
OpenAI has announced “special one-time” bonuses worth millions of dollars for about 1,000 employees – roughly one-third of its workforce – as the company battles to retain top AI talent, according to The Verge. The bonuses, announced just before the launch of GPT-5, target researchers and engineers in key departments including applied engineering, scaling, and safety.The highest payouts will reportedly reach the mid single-digit millions for OpenAI’s most coveted researchers, who already earn millions annually. Engineers are expected to receive bonuses averaging hundreds of thousands of dollars. The payments will be distributed quarterly over two years, with recipients choosing between OpenAI stock, cash, or both.
Rivals offer $100 million signing bonuses to lure OpenAI’s top talent
This marks the first time OpenAI has offered bonuses to such a large number of employees, highlighting the fierce competition for AI talent. The move comes after CEO Sam Altman revealed that Meta has been offering signing bonuses as high as $100 million, with even larger annual compensation packages, to poach OpenAI staff. Speaking on a podcast, Altman claimed that “so far none of our best people have decided to take them up on that,” but acknowledged Meta’s aggressive strategy.Meta has led the charge in recruitment efforts, recently naming Shengjia Zhao, one of ChatGPT’s creators, as chief scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs. OpenAI’s research officer Mark Chen has internally compared Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg‘s poaching tactics to “a home invasion.”The talent wars extend far beyond Meta’s efforts. Elon Musk’s xAI has also made aggressive offers to lure away OpenAI’s top researchers, while former CTO Mira Murati recently recruited several technical leaders for her rival venture, Thinking Machines. Industry sources suggest that Zuckerberg has become so frustrated with Meta’s AI progress that he’s willing to invest billions in top talent, personally involving himself in recruitment efforts.Altman has criticised Meta’s strategy of offering massive upfront guaranteed compensation, arguing it detracts from actual innovation work and fails to build a winning culture. “That basically never works,” he said, suggesting competitors are “always going to where your competitor was” rather than fostering genuine innovation.
Not all staff eligible for million-dollar payouts
CEO Sam Altman acknowledged the competitive pressures, stating “we have been looking at comp for our technical teams given the movement in the market” and emphasised the company’s intention to “keep increasing comp as we keep doing better and better as a company”.The selective nature of these bonuses means two-thirds of OpenAI’s workforce won’t receive the additional compensation, raising questions about employee morale across different departments. The move could potentially deepen the very retention problems OpenAI was trying to solve. However, OpenAI is reportedly planning another retention strategy: allowing current and former employees to sell their company stock to investors, potentially at valuations approaching $500 billion
