
Zuckerberg declares Meta’s superintelligence era but one key figure is missing
The Facebook founder taps Scale AI’s Wang as chief AI officer, while Safe Superintelligence founder Daniel Gross stays out of the spotlight.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has never hidden his AI ambitions, but his latest move signals a far deeper bet: a bold restructuring of the company’s entire artificial intelligence unit under a new banner - Meta Superintelligence Labs - and a declared mission to build AI systems that can equal or surpass human capabilities.
An internal memo, first reported by Bloomberg, details a sweeping realignment that puts Alexandr Wang, the youthful founder of data-labeling firm Scale AI, at the helm as Meta’s new chief AI officer. Zuckerberg’s personal endorsement of Wang as “the most impressive founder of his generation” underlines the seriousness of the gamble.
Joining Wang is Nat Friedman, the former GitHub CEO, who will “partner with Alex” to lead Meta’s push on advanced AI products and applied research. The two are just the latest high-profile additions to Zuckerberg’s intensifying AI push. Earlier this month, Meta sealed a $14.3 billion deal for nearly half of Scale AI, effectively buying Wang’s commitment in the process.
For Zuckerberg, whose company faces stiff competition from OpenAI and Google’s DeepMind, this is a defining moment. “As the pace of AI progress accelerates, developing superintelligence is coming into sight,” he told employees. “I believe this will be the beginning of a new era for humanity, and I am fully committed to doing what it takes for Meta to lead the way.”
Yet amid the aggressive reshuffle, one name stands conspicuously absent: Daniel Gross. Ten days ago, Gross, co-founder of the secretive Safe Superintelligence (SSI) project and Friedman’s longtime collaborator, was among the first marquee figures Meta reportedly poached for its superintelligence strategy. Together, Gross and Friedman run the influential venture fund NFDG, which Meta reportedly bought into.
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His omission is all the more striking given that Gross helped Ilya Sutskever found Safe Superintelligence, the $32 billion startup that rebuffed Meta’s attempt at an outright acquisition earlier this year. SSI, backed by Google, Nvidia, and some of Silicon Valley’s deepest-pocketed venture funds, is among the loudest voices calling for safe superintelligence, a deliberate counterpoint to the more aggressive, commercial direction that OpenAI has charted.
The latest wave of hires at Meta includes engineers and scientists from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic. Among the new recruits: DeepMind’s Jack Rae and Pei Sun, and OpenAI’s Jiahui Yu, Shuchao Bi, Shengjia Zhao and Hongyu Ren.