How Elon Musk may be right when he told Mark Zuckerberg: Many top engineers of Meta are joining my AI company xAI, and I am paying them …

Elon Musk recently claimed that many top engineers from Meta are now joining his AI company, xAI, asserting that his startup is winning the talent war not with ‘insanely high’ salaries but with a “hyper merit-based” culture. This claim appears to be backed by a recent report which indicates a significant talent migration from major tech firms to Musk’s AI company. According to a report by The Information, xAI has successfully recruited at least 40 former Google employees since 2023 – essentially supporting Musk’s argument of influx of talent from technology giants.

Citing LinkedIn and X posts and profiles from xAI employees, the report claims that out of the 40 hires from Google, a notable 19 of those engineers and researchers joined xAI this year alone. Not only Meta and Google, xAI is reported to have hired AI talent from Microsoft.