More departures could follow, marking a major talent reshuffle just at Apple

A top executive behind Apple’s foundational artificial intelligence models, Ruoming Pang, is leaving for Meta in a blow to the iPhone maker’s efforts to keep pace in the AI race.

Pang led a 100-person team responsible for the large language models powering Apple Intelligence and the next-gen Siri.

His exit comes as Apple explores integrating third-party AI models from OpenAI or Anthropic, sparking concern among internal teams over the future of its in-house efforts. The move raises fears of further departures, potentially triggering a broader talent exodus.

Meanwhile, Meta reportedly offered Pang a compensation package worth tens of millions of dollars per year. The move is a part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s aggressive hiring spree for his new “superintelligence” unit. 

He has directly recruited top talent from OpenAI, Anthropic, Scale AI, and GitHub, and plans to spend billions this year to dominate the AI frontier.