The engineers at Tesla are seeing their salaries increase after Elon Musk claimed that companies like Meta are trying to poach their top talent.
Musk is also in the market for engineers to join his artificial intelligence (AI) startup xAI. He recently snapped up Ethan Knight from Tesla. Musk said “Ethan was going to join OpenAI, so it was either xAI or them. They (Musk’s market rivals) have been aggressively recruiting Tesla engineers with massive compensation offers and have unfortunately been successful in a few cases.”
The billionaire who ranked in the Top 10 of the Forbes Rich List rankings would make the comments on X (Formerly Twitter) when responding to a question about staff pay:
Is Tesla matching these compensation offers? Or is it more than these employees just want to switch things up, so matching wouldn't matter?
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) April 3, 2024
The AI Recruitment War
The top talent in the artificial intelligence market is at the center of a tug-of-war for their services. These industry-leading services have shown that they will leave no stone unturned to ensure they capture the services of the most skilled at any price.
Musk would refer to the battle for staff to take on AI responsibilities and development as the most competitive in his professional experience. He stated that the “talent war for AI is the craziest talent war I’ve ever seen.”
Mark Zuckerberg leads the Meta recruitment drive personally and according to a report by The Information, he reached out to two prospective AI specialists from Google Deepmind.
The report stated that the two undisclosed individuals were contacted to join him at Meta to continue the company’s investment in artificial intelligence and research.
Meta has also reportedly been breaking their golden rule of salary caps to entice individuals that they believe can give them the edge in the competition to have the most sought-after AI.
The news outlet has also reported that Google cofounder Sergey Brin picked up the phone to dissuade top talent from leaving for OpenAI. This shows those at the top of the digital perch are not too proud to make an effort to retain these highly talented individuals.
2024 will see artificial intelligence take center stage, so we will be seeing a host of sagas involving computer chips and the top talent that can get the best out of the technology as the year rumbles on.
