Zuckerberg Wanted to Take Over a Key AI Company. He Walked Away Empty

According to Bloomberg, the financial terms under discussion were not disclosed. Perplexity recently closed a new round of financing at a valuation of $14 billion.

Meta has invested over $14 billion in another AI project

The talks with Meta, which were not previously reported, underscore Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s willingness to pursue acquisitions and big hires for his own company to catch up in the AI ​​race.

The talks took place before Meta finalized a deal this month to invest $14.3 billion in Scale AI and take a 49% stake in the data labeling startup.

Zuckerberg wants to win the AI ​​race at all costs

According to Bloomberg, Zuckerberg, exasperated by the pace of AI development at Meta, is making a concerted effort to poach top AI talent from across the industry, offering them lucrative compensation packages . Meta managed to hire former Scale AI CEO Alexander Wang, as well as top researchers from Google DeepMind and Sesame AI Inc.

Not everyone is rushing to join Meta, though. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on a podcast this week that some of his employees had received offers from Meta of $100 million in signing bonuses and even bigger compensation packages , but declined to join Meta.