Meta Zuckerberg should win AI after billions spent on “Dream Team”

When Mark Zuckerberg He feels the warmth, he opens his wallet.

41-year-old founder of Facebook and Meta The CEO is expenses, as never before in an attempt to position its company at the head of the boom of artificial intelligence and to compensate for the latest expensive mistakes in the market that is rapidly revolutionizing the world of business.

After the stunning last week for the stunning of $ 14.3 billion in investment on a scale AI that brought with it Meta Hiring the founder of the startup, Alexander WangAnd a small group of his best employees, Meta now plans to hire former CEO of Github Nat Friedman and his business partner Daniel Gross, who was the CEO of $ 32 billion AI Startup Seace Supertelligence, CNBC ReportD this week.

Earlier, Meta tried to buy the Safe Superintelligence, which was started a year ago by the co-founder of Openai Ilya Sutskever, sources told CNBC. According to other sources, Meta had previously been negotiated for purchase Perplexity aiwhich was estimated at $ 14 billion in a funding round in May. People who spoke to CNBC about the various deals activities wanted not to be indicated because of confidentiality.

Zuckerberg told investors at the top of the latest Call the profit In April, “the main topic right now, of course, is how AI transforms everything we do.” At the same time, META has increased its capital expenditure to the year to between $ 64 billion and $ 72 billion of between $ 60 billion and $ 65 billion to reflect more investment in the AI ​​Data Center and potentially higher hardware costs.

What Zuckerberg did not say then is that he is about to start firing mounds of money to renew his AI organization.

“Mark Zuckerberg is in the founder’s mode and he will not be stopped,” says Gil Luria, an analyst at Da Davidson, in an interview on Friday with “Money Movers” on CNBC.

The Meta AI is built throughout the company, from its main online advertising unit and Instagram algorithms to its efforts to build Metaverse. Better AI models and technologies improve the company’s existing business, both by improving advertising and reducing costs.

However, the construction of basic models used by the vast community of developers – where the company competes GoogleOpenai, Anthropic and others – is the place where Meta is viewed by many as a lag.

The unique Meta approach is built around the Llama family family. His last update in April, Llama 4 AI modelsHe was not well received by the developers. At that time, Meta released only two smaller versions of Llama 4 and stated that it would eventually release a bigger and more powerful model “Begemot”.

“On the heels of the successful launch of Llama 3 a year ago, Llama 4, which came out this year, was an absolute failure, almost at his recognition,” Lyuria said, citing Zuckerberg. “Meta can’t afford to fail in the lead AI model. So they are on the market, desperately trying to replace their AI team right now.”

Meta did not respond to a request for a comment on this story.

Zuckerberg then turned his attention to Friedman and Gross of GitHub, which invest together in their risky company NfdgS They will work on products under Wang, a source familiar with the question told, told CNBC on Thursday. Meta, meanwhile, will receive a share in NFDG, according to numerous sources.

A Meta spokesman did not comment on the planned rents and said the company “would” share more about our efforts to supervise and the big people who join this team in the coming weeks. “

Not all Zuckerberg recruits cost billions of dollars. Some are in dozens or hundreds of millions. This is according to Openai CEO Sam AltmanS

Altman said In the last episode of “Unsupported“Podcast, which his brother hosts Meta, tried to lure Openai employees by offering signing bonuses up to $ 100 million, with even more annual compensation packages.

“I heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor,” Altman said in a podcast. “Their current efforts of II have not worked as well as they hoped, and I respect that I am aggressive and continue to try new things.”

Meta Technology Chief Andrew Bosworth told “CNBC’s final bell on Friday” on Friday that Altman counteracts offers.

“The market sets a talent level here, which is truly incredible and some unprecedented in my 20-year career as CEO of Technology,” said Bosworth, who joined Meta in 2006.

Wall Street is most giving Zuckerberg the benefit of doubt for now. Meta’s shares were flat this week after about 2%escaped last week. The shares are still 17% for the year, ahead of Nasdaq and all the MEGACAP peers of the company.

ARGUS analysts maintained their stock purchase recommendation this week and raised their price price to $ 790 per share of $ 725 per share. The action closed on Friday to $ 682,35.

“The company’s ability to take advantage of Genai’s progress in targeting advertising is a particularly appropriate opportunity to stimulate advertising costs, which is the vital force of the company,” writes Argus analysts.

Da Davidson’s Luria said that Zuckerberg had put more pressure on himself to turn Meta into a long-term AI leader, but said he would not bet on him.

Luria said, “The last time Mr. Zuckerberg felt like under the gun,” he clicked on Instagram For $ 1 billion, a deal that has made the scene to become a dominant player at Mobile.

This was in 2012, just when Facebook was about to hit the public market. Luria also emphasized Zuckerberg’s controversial $ 19 Billion Purchase on WhatsApp Two years later. He sees Meta CEO who makes an equally bold bet on AI.

“He will restore the team and they will come back,” Luria said.

– Kate Rooney and Jonathan Vanian from CNBC have contributed to this report.

Watch: Meta approached AI bewildered before a large scale AI deal