The AI talent wars are heating up as Meta attempts to poach talent from OpenAI with $100 million signing bonuses and even higher salaries — but OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says the company's "best people" have turned down Meta's offer.

On an episode of the "Uncapped" podcast that aired on Tuesday, Altman, 40, spoke candidly about Meta's efforts to recruit OpenAI researchers with "giant offers." While Meta's efforts have been unsuccessful so far, Altman expressed disbelief at the nine-figure signing bonuses and salaries. The average employee at OpenAI makes $1.13 million per year, according to Levels.fyi.

"They [Meta] started making these giant offers to a lot of people on our team," Altman said in the podcast interview. "$100 million signing bonuses, more than that comp [compensation] per year. It is crazy. I'm really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that."

Related: Here's How Much a Typical Google Employee Makes in a Year

Altman said that the reason OpenAI researchers chose to stay at the startup instead of moving to higher salaries at Meta was because they think OpenAI has "a much better shot" of........

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