Meta’s appetite for AI dominance has not been sated. Recent reports indicate that following a massive 14.3 billion USD investment in Scale AI, Meta has also been actively pursuing acquisitions and talent from key AI companies.
Perplexity Acquisition Talks Halted
On June 20, CNBC reported that Meta recently explored acquiring AI startup Perplexity. Known for its next-generation AI search technology that rivals Google, Perplexity was valued at approximately 14 billion USD as of May. However, the negotiations reportedly were not finalized. Multiple sources indicated that the talks were terminated by mutual agreement, with Perplexity allegedly being the first to halt the talks. The specific reasons behind this decision remain undisclosed.
Meta’s Bid for SSI Acquisition
In addition to Perplexity, it was reported that earlier this year, Meta also attempted to acquire Safe Superintelligence (SSI), a startup founded by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever. At the time, SSI was valued at around 32 billion USD. Sutskever reportedly declined the acquisition offer. After leaving OpenAI due to conflicts with Sam Altman over AI safety concerns, Sutskever established SSI with the goal of developing safe superintelligence.
Despite this setback, Meta successfully recruited SSI co-founder Daniel Gross and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman. They are set to work on a superintelligence project within Scale AI, the company in which Meta has invested. Meta also purchased stakes in NFDG, the venture capital firm operated by Gross and Friedman.
Aggressive Talent Recruitment
Meta is aggressively courting top engineers from promising U.S. AI startups. CNBC recently revealed that Meta offered OpenAI engineers compensation packages worth up to 100 million USD to switch allegiances. In response, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman lambasted the move as insane. While Meta unveiled its own large language model (LLM), Llama 4, in April, it has been viewed as falling short of expectations. As the gap with OpenAI widens, Meta is also planning to establish a superintelligence research institute to regain its leadership in the AI race.
Meta’s recent actions reflect a desperate attempt to reclaim dominance in the AI industry, adopting an approach to buy everything with money. This strategy aims to absorb not just technology, but also talent and entire companies. With targets including Scale AI, Perplexity, SSI, and OpenAI’s talent, Meta’s ambitions are at the heart of the race for the next generation of AI supremacy. This suggests that the ongoing merger and acquisition wars among tech giants are likely to intensify in the coming months.
