Meta loses top AI researcher Andrew Tulloch after brief stint
What's the story
Andrew Tulloch, a renowned AI researcher and co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab, has left his position at Meta. The news was reported by Semafor. Tulloch is known for allegedly turning down a massive pay package from Mark Zuckerberg in the past. His departure comes comes just a day after the company launched Muse, an OpenClaw-like agentic AI platform with coding and computer use capabilities. However, the reason behind Tulloch's departure remains unclear.
Career trajectory
Tulloch's background and contributions to Meta
Tulloch, who hails from Perth, Australia, studied math at the University of Sydney and Cambridge.
He worked on "superintelligence" at Meta's Superintelligence Labs under Alexandr Wang, the co-founder and former CEO of Scale AI.
Career path
The 'billion-dollar' offer that never materialized
Before joining Meta, Tulloch co-founded Thinking Machines Lab with Mira Murati, a former CTO of OpenAI.
The lab was reportedly approached by Zuckerberg for acquisition but the deal didn't go through.
Instead, Zuckerberg offered Tulloch a pay package worth up to $1.5 billion over six years, depending on bonuses and stock performance.
However, Andy Stone, a Meta spokesperson, has denied this report as "inaccurate and ridiculous."