Sam Altman, Hyung Won Chung, Max Schwarzer, Jason Wei

An annotated screenshot from an OpenAI product announcement video on December 5, 2024 (Screenshot: OpenAI/YouTube)

Two more top OpenAI researchers defect to Meta

At least 10 top OpenAI researchers have now left for Meta’s “superintelligence” team, lured by huge pay packages and massive computing resources.

Jon Keegan

7/16/25 2:10PM

Meta’s hiring spree for its new “superintelligence” team has bagged two new high-profile defectors from OpenAI. Wired reports that Jason Wei and Hyung Won Chung have left their roles at OpenAI for Mark Zuckerberg’s new team of AI all-stars. According to the report, the pair were close collaborators who worked on OpenAI’s o1 and “deep research” models.

Meta has been luring top AI talent from its rivals with eye-popping pay packages and signing bonuses. Reportedly, Meta paid Apple AI exec Ruoming Pang a package worth $200 million.

With these latest poaches, that makes at least 10 AI researchers Meta has been able to tempt away from OpenAI.

While the outsized pay packages are a huge draw, the chance to continue to work with close collaborators at a company that is dedicating tens of billions toward some of the largest AI data centers in the world may also prove to be irresistible for some researchers.

The departures may be taking a toll on morale at the AI startup. Mark Chen, OpenAI’s chief research officer, reportedly told staff that it felt like “someone has broken into our home and stolen something.”

openai happier times 2 — An annotated screenshot from the September 20, 2024, “Building OpenAI o1” video (Screenshot: OpenAI/YouTube)

CEO and cofounder Sam Altman reportedly told his employees in a message on Slack, “What Meta is doing will, in my opinion, lead to very deep cultural problems.”

South by Southwest Conference and Festivals

Gold Tesla Cybercabs are piling up, but they’re not picking up passengers yet

Low-volume production started in April. Now people are noticing them more and more in the wild.

Rani Molla21h

Millie Giles

TAKING ACCOUNTS

22h

Britain announces social media ban for under-16s starting early 2027

The UK government plans to use the same model for the restrictions as Australia — but how successful has that case study been so far?

UK Prime Minister Announces Under-16s Social Media Ban

Jon Keegan22h

Anthropic pulls Fable and Mythos access worldwide after Trump administration bars their use by foreign nationals

Only days after releasing two versions of its next-gen AI model, Anthropic has disabled them for users worldwide.

Anthropic says it received a Friday night order from the Trump administration to suspend access to the models for any foreign national (anywhere in the world) — a group that included some Anthropic employees. In response, the company turned off access to everyone.

Last week, the company released to the public its much-anticipated Claude Fable 5 model (and its restricted version Claude Mythos 5, which is still being tested with trusted partners). Anthropic said in a blog post announcing the action that officials cited national security concerns with the new models, while offering few specific details.

The post said that the government gave the company “verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak” of the public Fable 5 model. A jailbreak is a means by which users can evade restrictions built into the code to unlock prohibited functionality. Anthropic downplayed the significance of the attack, and said other major models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-5.5, could also be affected by the technique described.

Fears of these first Mythos-class models being misused are running high, after Anthropic warned the cybersecurity world in May that the advanced cyber capabilities of Mythos have rapidly discovered thousands of vulnerabilities in ubiquitous software, leading to the decision to restrict the full version of the model to a close group of trusted partners for testing.

This morning, Axios reported that Anthropic technical staff have flown to Washington to meet with White House officials to resolve the issue.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Trump administration’s decision to take action against Anthropic was prompted by discussions that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had with officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. According to the report, Amazon researchers said they had been able to evade some of Fable 5’s security restrictions using specific prompts. Amazon is a major investor in Anthropic.

Anthropic is currently suing the US government to fight the Pentagon’s blacklisting of the company on national security grounds.

Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5

This morning, Axios reported that Anthropic technical staff have flown to Washington to meet with White House officials to resolve the issue.

Anthropic is currently suing the US government to fight the Pentagon’s blacklisting of the company on national security grounds.

Rani Molla6/15/26

Tesla used skewed data in push for European FSD approval, Reuters finds

Tesla has used highly questionable safety stats in an effort to win over European regulators and rekindle sales in the region, according to a Reuters investigation.

Tesla reportedly pitched regulators in Sweden and the Netherlands with claims that its Full Self-Driving (FSD) tech is over 7x safer than human drivers. However, independent researchers told Reuters that the stats are misleading because Tesla compares airbag-deployment crashes involving FSD-equipped vehicles with much broader US crash statistics, while also benchmarking newer Teslas against the entire US vehicle fleet, which is significantly older on average.

Despite the flawed metrics, the Dutch regulator approved FSD in April, saying its decision was based on its own “tests, analyses and verifications,” and Tesla is now pushing for EU-wide clearance. A version of FSD is currently available in five European markets.

Exclusive: Tesla presented misleading ‘Full Self-Driving’ safety data to European regulators

Rani Molla6/12/26

Report: Microsoft weighs Xbox spin-off amid major overhaul

Microsoft is reportedly considering spinning out or restructuring its struggling Xbox unit, per The Information. While new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, who took over in February, is preparing for layoffs, she’s simultaneously planning to boost investment in its biggest franchises like “Halo,” “Fallout,” and “Minecraft.”

The latest potential shake-up comes as the gaming division battles major headwinds, following a massive 33% plunge in Q3 console sales and a recent move to slash Game Pass prices while removing new “Call of Duty” titles.