Meta Hires OpenAI Researcher to Co-Lead AI Laboratory

Mark Zuckerberg has recruited a senior researcher from OpenAI to take on the role of research principal at Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL). Yang Song, who formerly led the strategic explorations team at OpenAI, is now under the supervision of Shengjia Zhao, another former OpenAI employee overseeing the prominent AI initiative since July, according to multiple sources. He began his new role earlier this month.

This development follows Zuckerberg’s aggressive hiring campaign earlier this summer, during which he brought on board at least 11 prominent researchers from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.

Song joined OpenAI in 2022, focusing on enhancing models’ capacity to handle large, intricate datasets across various modalities. While still a graduate student at Stanford University, he devised a groundbreaking technique that contributed to the creation of OpenAI’s DALL-E 2 image generation model. Both he and Zhao completed their undergraduate studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing and worked under the same advisor, Stefano Ermon, while pursuing their PhDs at Stanford.

In a memo distributed to all staff this summer, Zuckerberg praised Zhao’s remarkable background as a co-creator of ChatGPT, GPT-4, and several mini models including 4.1 and o3 at OpenAI; however, he did not detail Zhao’s updated position at Meta. In July, Zuckerberg noted in a Threads post that although Zhao had “cofounded the lab” and “been our lead scientist from day one,” Meta opted to “formalize his leadership role” as the chief scientist of the lab. This decision followed Zhao’s expressed intention to return to OpenAI, even reportedly signing employment documents, as previously reported by WIRED.

Since its announcement in June, a few researchers have departed from Meta Superintelligence Labs. According to WIRED, two staff members have returned to OpenAI, with one completing onboarding but failing to report for their first day at Meta.

Another AI researcher, Aurko Roy, has also exited Meta in July, as confirmed by WIRED. Having spent only five months at the tech giant, his personal website indicates that he is now involved with Microsoft AI. Roy has not yet responded to a request for comment from WIRED. Yang Song, OpenAI, and Meta have also yet to respond to inquiries from WIRED.

Song enters an already competitive field of prominent AI experts within Meta’s increasingly complex AI division. Following Zhao’s appointment in July, there were speculations that he had taken over from Yann LeCun, Meta’s longstanding chief AI scientist. In a LinkedIn post, LeCun clarified that he continues to serve as chief AI scientist for Facebook AI Research (FAIR), the company’s foundational AI research lab.