July 8, 2025 – In a move that poses yet another setback for Apple’s already struggling AI endeavors, the tech giant’s top executive in charge of AI models is set to jump ship to Meta.
According to sources familiar with the matter, Ruoming Pang, a well – known engineer and the head of Apple’s foundational model team, is on the verge of leaving the company. Pang joined Apple in 2021 from Alphabet, and now he has become the latest high – profile target of Meta’s newly formed “super – intelligence team”.
Meta is pulling out all the stops to recruit Pang, offering him an annual compensation package worth tens of millions of dollars. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is on a hiring spree, using hefty salaries to lure leading AI figures to his company. Among those he has successfully attracted are Alexandr Wang, the founder of Scale AI, Daniel Gross, a startup founder, and Nat Friedman, the former CEO of GitHub.
On Monday, Meta also made two more significant hires in the AI field. It brought on board Yuanzhi Li, a researcher from OpenAI, and Anton Bakhtin, who was involved in the development of the Claude model at Anthropic.
As of the time of writing, Meta has declined to comment on these developments. Both Apple and Pang have also remained silent on the matter. This latest talent exodus could further hamper Apple’s efforts to catch up in the fiercely competitive AI race, while strengthening Meta’s position as it assembles a dream team of AI experts.
