OpenAI hires 4 AI engineers from Tesla, xAI, and Meta
What's the story
OpenAI has hired four AI engineers and researchers from its competitors. The new recruits are David Lau, ex-Tesla VP of software engineering; Uday Ruddarraju, ex-xAI and X head of infrastructure engineering; Mike Dalton, another infrastructure engineer from xAI; and Angela Fan, an AI researcher from Meta. The news was confirmed by OpenAI's co-founder and president Greg Brockman on X.
Team expansion
New recruits join OpenAI's scaling team
The new recruits will be joining OpenAI's scaling team, which is responsible for backend hardware and software systems as well as data centers, including Stargate. Ruddarraju and Dalton were previously involved in building xAI's Colossus, a supercomputer with over 200,000 GPUs. Their expertize will likely contribute to OpenAI's Stargate project, which is aimed at developing next-generation AI infrastructure.
Internal operations
Hiring war intensifies between AI companies
The scaling team at OpenAI plays a vital role in ensuring the smooth operation of its systems and preparing them for future, more powerful models. This is especially important considering the intense competition in the AI space, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also aggressively recruiting talent from rivals. In response to this hiring war, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has hinted that salary adjustments may be on the table for researchers to stay competitive.
Growth strategy
Ruddarraju described Stargate as a high-stakes infrastructure challenge
An OpenAI spokesperson, Hannah Wong, confirmed the new hires and reiterated the company's commitment to growing its world-class teams in research, infrastructure, and product development. Ruddarraju described Stargate as a high-stakes infrastructure challenge that perfectly matches his passion for ambitious projects. Lau said working toward safe and well-aligned AGI felt like the most meaningful goal he could pursue at this stage of his career.
Talent acquisition
OpenAI competes with Meta in talent war
The latest round of hiring comes as OpenAI faces stiff competition from Meta in the talent war. Zuckerberg has reportedly lured several engineers from OpenAI with high salaries and easy access to computing power—two increasingly scarce resources in the AI industry. This is not just a technology race but also a battle for building the strongest possible team, which makes this hiring spree all the more significant.