When Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg poached Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang last week as part of a $14.3 billion investment in the artificial intelligence startup, he was apparently just getting started. Zuckerberg’s multibillion-dollar AI hiring spree has now turned to Daniel Gross, the CEO of Ilya Sutskever’s startup Safe Superintelligence, and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, according to sources with knowledge of the matter. It’s not how Zuckerberg planned for a deal to go down. Earlier this year, sources said, Meta tried to acquire Safe Superintelligence, which was reportedly valued at $32 billion in a fundraising round in April. Sutskever, who just launched the startup a year ago, shortly after leaving OpenAI, rebuffed Meta’s efforts, as well as the company’s attempt to hire him, said the sources, who asked not to be named because the information is confidential. Soon after those talks ended, Zuckerberg started negotiating with Gross, the sources said. In addition to his role at Safe Superintelligence, Gross runs a venture capital firm with Friedman called NFDG, their combined initials. Both men are joining Meta as part of the transaction, and will work on products under Wang, one source said. Meta, meanwhile, will get a stake in NFDG, according to multiple sources. The Information was first to report on Meta’s plans to hire Gross and Friedman. Gross, Friedman and Sutskever didn’t respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.

Full report : Meta recently tried to acquire Safe Superintelligence, the AI startup launched by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, according to sources familiar with the matter.

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