Meta's Mark Zuckerberg sidelines AI chief Alexandr Wang in shakeup
Meta just made a big move: CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken power away from Alexandr Wang—who was brought in last year after Meta invested roughly $14.3 billion to buy a stake in Scale AI and appointed its CEO to lead Superintelligence Labs.
This shakeup comes only nine months after Wang joined, and signals Meta's new direction in AI.
Wang cut out of direct control
Meta has set up a fresh applied AI engineering team under Maher Saba, reporting to CTO Andrew Bosworth.
This new group will build a data engine and control data pipelines and tooling for projects such as the Avocado and Mango models—basically cutting Wang out of direct control.
His researchers now report to other executives instead.
Tensions with top leaders, shifting focus to AI
Wang reportedly butted heads with top leaders (including Cox and Bosworth) over how Instagram data should be used for AI work, and things got tense with chief AI scientist Yann LeCun too.
All this comes as Meta is betting big on AI—shifting focus away from the metaverse toward smarter tech.
Major pivot for Meta
This is a major pivot for one of the world's biggest tech companies.
If you're curious about where social media—and artificial intelligence—is headed next, keep an eye on these moves: they'll shape what apps and platforms look like for years to come.