Meta Secures Key Apple AI Executive in Major Coup

Ruoming Pang, chief engineer and manager of Apple's foundational model team, is departing to join Meta's newly established "Super Intelligence Division," according to Bloomberg sources. Pang oversaw development of Apple's large language models powering features like Genmoji and smart notifications since joining from Alphabet in 2021.

Turmoil in Apple's AI Division

The high-profile departure marks the most significant leadership shakeup since Apple launched its "Apple Intelligence" initiative. Pang previously led approximately 100 engineers and spearheaded Apple's first external developer access to its models in June 2025.

Internal pressures are mounting as Apple considers integrating third-party models from OpenAI or Anthropic into Siri - a move that reportedly demoralized the in-house team. Bloomberg notes several engineers have already planned exits, including Pang's close collaborator Tom Gunter last month.

Meta's Aggressive Talent Acquisition

Meta has been systematically recruiting top AI experts, recently hiring:

• Alexandr Wang, Daniel Gross, and Nat Friedman from Scale AI
• Yuanzhi Li from OpenAI
• Anton Bakhtin from Anthropic

The company reportedly offered Pang a compensation package worth tens of millions annually. This follows last month's hiring of multiple OpenAI researchers.

Zifei Chen will assume leadership of Apple's Foundation Model Team (AFM), restructuring the previously flat organization into hierarchical management layers.

Key Points

• Meta deals major blow to Apple by poaching foundational AI team leader
• Departure follows growing internal tensions over potential third-party model integration
• Meta continues aggressive recruitment from rival AI firms with premium compensation packages
• Talent war highlights critical importance of AI expertise in tech industry arms race