Meta Platforms intensified its push to assemble an elite artificial-intelligence team, offering to buy Mira Murati’s six-month-old startup, Thinking Machines Lab, for roughly $1 billion, according to people familiar with the talks. When the acquisition bid was rejected, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg pivoted to direct recruitment of the San-Francisco-based lab’s 50 employees. The most eye-catching package—worth more than $1.5 billion in cash and stock over six years—was extended to Thinking Machines co-founder and former Meta engineer Andrew Tulloch, Wall Street Journal sources said. Tulloch declined, and none of his colleagues accepted smaller offers that insiders say ranged from $200 million to $500 million. The failed raid underscores both the scarcity of top AI researchers and the soaring sums now deployed to secure them. Meta has approached about 100 OpenAI staff this year and persuaded roughly 10 to join its new Superintelligence Lab. One success came outside Murati’s company: 24-year-old researcher Matt Deitke agreed to a four-year package reportedly worth up to $250 million after meeting with Zuckerberg. Rival labs are also capitalising on the frenzy. Elon Musk said many former Meta engineers have joined his startup xAI without “insane” pay deals, arguing that long-term equity upside can outshine nine-figure guarantees. The standoff highlights how, even amid billion-dollar dangling cheques, vision, culture and control remain decisive factors in the global contest for AI talent.