Meta Poaches Yet Another Apple AI Leader Despite Company-Wide Hiring Freeze

Meta's talent raid on Apple's AI division continues—snagging another top executive while maintaining a hiring freeze for everyone else.

The Silicon Valley Shuffle

Another day, another high-profile defection. Meta just landed its latest Apple AI recruit, pulling talent from Cupertino despite implementing a company-wide headcount freeze. The move signals relentless focus on artificial intelligence—even if it means bending internal policies.

Selective Expansion

While regular employees face hiring restrictions, Meta's AI division operates by different rules. Strategic hires get greenlit—especially those with Apple pedigrees. Because nothing says 'efficiency' like freezing 99% of roles while writing blank checks for the 1%.

Wall Street barely blinked—because when has tech ever followed its own rules? Priorities shift faster than a crypto trader's portfolio during a tweetstorm.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Meta Platforms is reportedly hiring another senior AI executive from Apple for its Meta Superintelligence Labs, where it is moving to freeze headcount.
• According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, the Facebook parent is hiring Frank Chu, who has led Apple AI teams focused on cloud infrastructure, training, and search.
• Chu is at least the sixth Apple employee working on AI models to defect to Meta, the report said.

Meta Platforms (META) is reportedly hiring another senior AI executive from Apple (AAPL) for its Meta Superintelligence Labs division, where it is moving to freeze headcount.

According to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, the Facebook parent is hiring Frank Chu, who has led Apple AI teams focused on cloud infrastructure, training, and search. Chu is at least the sixth Apple employee working on AI models to defect to Meta. The most recent hire is Ruoming Pang, the head of the iPhone maker’s AI models team, the report said.

Bloomberg said Chu “helped manage the running of large language models on Apple cloud servers and oversaw some training of the software.” He also worked on creating search functions for the Siri voice assistant and entertainment services, the report said.

Apple and Meta didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Apple shares, which entered Friday down 10% this year, are up slightly in morning trading. Meta shares are little changed.