Zuckerberg’s big AI shopping spree

Mark Zuckerberg, the head of Meta, is on a mission to boost his company’s artificial intelligence game. Recently, he explored buying three AI startups: Thinking Machines Lab, Perplexity, and Safe Superintelligence. Former OpenAI leaders run these companies, but none of the deals were finalized due to disagreements over pricing and plans. Still, it shows how eager Zuckerberg is to catch up in the AI race.

Instead of buying these startups, their leaders—Thinking Machines’ Mira Murati, Safe Superintelligence’s Ilya Sutskever, and Perplexity’s Aravind Srinivas—chose to raise more money on their own. Sutskever and Murati each secured billions for their companies, while Srinivas is working on a $500 million deal for Perplexity. None of them have products ready yet, but they’re valued highly.

Zuckerberg isn’t giving up. He’s building a strong AI team at Meta, hiring big names like Daniel Gross from Safe Superintelligence and Nat Friedman, formerly of GitHub. They’ll work under Alexandr Wang, who joined Meta after a massive $14.3 billion investment in his startup, Scale AI.

This move highlights the fierce competition for top AI talent as Meta tries to keep up with rivals like OpenAI and Google. The AI world is heating up, and Zuckerberg’s bold moves show he’s serious about making Meta a leader in this fast-growing field. Whether through big hires or huge investments, he’s betting big on AI’s future.