Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, in an attempt to overcome the competition in the race to develop artificial intelligence, a few months ago contacted the Albanian Mira Murati, the former CTO of OpenAI, offering to buy her startup "Thinking Machines Lab".
Murati turned down the offer, and Zuckerberg reacted. In the weeks that followed, he contacted about 10 of her 50 colleagues to see if they would be willing to leave her company.
The target was Andrew Tulloch, co-founder and principal researcher at Thinking Machines Lab. According to Wall Street Journal, Zuckerberg offered Tulloch a package worth $1 billion, which with bonuses and stock options could reach up to $1.5 billion within the next six years.
Tulloch also rejected the offer, just like all the other colleagues who were contacted by Meta.
On the other hand, Meta's spokesman, Andy Stone, called the description of the offer "inaccurate and ridiculous", stating that Meta is not interested in acquiring Thinking Machines Lab.
'Startups' like Murati's offer more opportunities to create something big, which attracts many experts. An example of this is the fact that Meta, although it tried to recruit 100 OpenAI employees, managed to get only 10, while most chose to stay at OpenAI, because they consider it the best company in the field of artificial intelligence development.
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Mira Murati with new company, hires senior officials from "OpenAI"
Mira Murati left her position at OpenAI in September of last year. She was a key figure in the company's growth.
Since February 2025, she has been the executive director of the Thinking Machines Lab, where she joined 20 former colleagues from OpenAI, including John Schulman, one of the masterminds behind the development of ChatGPT.
The project that this company is working on, in which 2 billion euros have recently been invested, is strictly secret. From “Thinking Machines Lab” they announce that they are dedicated to making artificial intelligence more understandable, more adaptable and more capable in general. Murati himself has announced that the first product will be presented within the coming months.
