Apple's Top AI Executive Leaves for Meta Amid Hiring Spree

Apple's head of foundation models, Ruoming Pang, is leaving for Meta, joining Mark Zuckerberg's Superintelligence Labs group. Pang had managed Apple's AI models for features like Genmoji and text summarization. His departure marks another setback for Apple's in-house AI efforts. Meta has been aggressively hiring AI talent, including Alexandr Wang, Yuanzhi Li, and Anton Bakhtin, as it assembles a dream team.

Apple's top executive overseeing its in-house AI models, Ruoming Pang, has left the company to join Meta's Superintelligence Labs group, according to multiple sources. Pang's departure marks another significant setback for Apple's in-house AI efforts, which have been struggling to keep pace with competitors like Google and Samsung. Meta has been aggressively hiring AI talent, including Alexandr Wang, Yuanzhi Li, and Anton Bakhtin, as it assembles a dream team to lead its AI initiatives.

Pang, who managed Apple's foundation models team, was responsible for developing models used in features such as Genmoji, Priority Notifications, and on-device text summarization. His team of approximately 100 engineers was central to Apple's plans for a next-gen Siri experience. However, internal debates reportedly mounted over whether to stick with its own models or embrace third-party options like OpenAI's or Anthropic's models.

Meta, under the leadership of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has been offering massive pay packages to poach AI engineers from other companies. Pang reportedly received a multi-million-dollar annual offer from Meta, which has also hired AI experts from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Scale AI. The hiring spree is part of Meta's broader strategy to accelerate its push towards Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and solidify its competitive position against OpenAI, Google, and China's DeepSeek.

Meta's pivot to AGI is capital-intensive, and its ability to fund such high-stakes innovation will depend on its financial stability and scalability. Meta's continued high-margin business in advertising provides the runway to fund aggressive R&D without compromising balance sheet strength. Financial analysts will closely monitor upcoming quarterly results to assess the real monetization potential from Meta AI and its broader superintelligence vision.

References:
[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2025/07/07/apple-ai-executive-leaves-for-meta/
[2] https://9to5mac.com/2025/07/07/meta-just-hired-apples-head-of-foundation-models/
[3] https://news.bloomberglaw.com/artificial-intelligence/apple-loses-top-ai-models-executive-to-metas-hiring-spree-1
[4] https://site.financialmodelingprep.com/market-news/meta-launches-superintelligence-labs-under-new-chief-ai-officer-alexandr-wang