Top Apple AI Engineer Joins Meta’s Superintelligence Effort? Retail Shrugs It Off For Now

Apple, Inc. (AAPL), which lags behind its mega-cap tech peers in the artificial intelligence (AI) race, suffered a setback as Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) reportedly poached one of its key AI personnel.

Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed sources, that Ruoming Pang, designated as “Distinguished Software Engineer” and manager in charge of Apple’s foundation models team, is leaving the company to join Meta’s Superintelligence group. The Mark Zuckerberg-led company reportedly snared the executive by offering tens of millions of dollars in an annual pay package. 

Pang’s LinkedIn profile indicates that he is still working at Apple and has spent a four-year stint there. Previously, he spent over 15 years at Google.

The executive reportedly led a 100-member team at Apple, overseeing the company’s large-language models (LLMs). The team reportedly has come under pressure from Apple’s new AI leadership’s decision to consider using OpenAI and Anthropic technology to power the long-delayed upgraded Siri.

The rumored exit of Pang could be seen as a pushback against Apple’s AI ambitions, especially as it struggles to make meaningful headway, particularly after its delayed entry into the arena.

Apple’s stock has been among the weakest of the Magnificent Seven group, losing 16% year-to-date. In comparison, Meta stock has gained nearly 23%.

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment toward Apple stock tempered to ‘bullish’ (56/100) by late Monday from the ‘extremely bullish’ mood a day ago.

Retail largely shrugged off the implications of the poaching by Meta, with one watcher stating that “$AAPL the head of AI leaving is one of the biggest blessings for Apple. What has he done for the past four years to Apple software and Siri? Both are actually worse off.”

Sentiment toward Meta stock stayed ‘bullish’ (61/100), with the message volume at a ‘normal’ level.

For Meta, the move could be a boost, adding to its ramped-up efforts to put in place a strong team for its newly created superintelligence team to crack artificial general intelligence (AGI)

Citing individuals familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that Meta also hired more AI researchers on Monday, with OpenAI’s Yuanzhi Li and Anthropic’s Anton Bakhtin joining the team. 

These come on top of the recent spate of hires from OpenAI, which prompted an impassioned plea from the AI startup’s co-founder, Sam Altman, regarding the merits of staying with the company. He also took potshots at the people who jumped ship, calling them “mercenaries” and also at Meta, while also reportedly mulling a change in compensation.

Meta, meanwhile, has restructured its AI team to make it more nimble in competing against upstarts and veteran players. 

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