Ruoming Pang, who led the artificial intelligence division at Apple, has moved to Meta. According to media reports, the company offered him a compensation package worth tens of millions of dollars per year, marking one of the largest transitions in the tech industry this year.
This is reported by Finway
Personnel Changes at Apple and the Exodus of Specialists
Pang joined Apple in 2021 after working at Alphabet Inc. At Apple, he managed a team of one hundred specialists focused on developing artificial intelligence-based products, including training large language models (LLMs) and implementing functionality into the Apple Intelligence system. This platform, integrated into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, combines several of Apple’s artificial intelligence services.
According to sources, Meta has confirmed Pang’s move but has not disclosed details regarding the terms of the contract. Meanwhile, industry insiders note that the loss of such a specialist could significantly impact Apple’s prospects in AI development. Following Pang, his deputy Tom Gunther also left the company, and, according to press reports, the entire MLX team — developers of the machine learning framework for Apple Silicon chips — is also in question.
Meta Strengthens Its Position in Artificial Intelligence
In early July, Meta announced the creation of a new division, Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), which will be responsible for all of the company’s artificial intelligence-based products. The founder of Scale AI, Alexander Wang, has been appointed as the head of MSL. The team has already welcomed not only Pang but also other leading specialists from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.
OpenAI’s Chief Scientist, Mark Chen, compared Meta’s strategy of poaching specialists to breaking into someone else’s home.
Experts note that Meta’s active hiring policy could shift the balance of power in the artificial intelligence sector, as the company has a history of attracting leading engineers and executives from other tech giants.