Apple has lost one of its critical artificial intelligence executives, Ruoming Pang, to Meta Platforms Inc., marking a significant blow to its already turbulent AI ambitions. Pang, who led Apple’s foundation models team, is the latest in a string of high-profile AI hires by Meta as it doubles down on building superintelligence capabilities.
Meta confirmed the hiring late Monday, offering Pang a compensation package reportedly worth tens of millions of dollars annually. Pang, who joined Apple in 2021 from Alphabet Inc., oversaw the core large language models powering Apple Intelligence features like Genmoji, Priority Notifications, and on-device content summarization.
His exit underscores the growing internal tension within Apple’s AI division, where leadership has recently considered adopting third-party models from OpenAI or Anthropic to boost Siri’s performance. This strategic shift has reportedly affected morale within Apple’s AFM (Apple Foundation Models) team, with several engineers planning exits following Pang’s departure.
Meta’s AI hiring spree, led personally by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has attracted major AI figures including Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, and OpenAI researcher Yuanzhi Li. Zuckerberg, emphasizing AI as Meta’s top strategic priority, has restructured internal AI teams to focus on “superintelligence” and is hosting potential recruits at his homes to woo top-tier talent.
Pang’s team at Apple was about 100 strong and recently saw a leadership shakeup after Siri and several other AI-related projects were reassigned to Craig Federighi and Mike Rockwell. Apple’s AI senior VP John Giannandrea was internally sidelined earlier this year due to delays in Siri’s revamp and a lukewarm reception to Apple Intelligence.
Following Pang’s exit, AFM will be led by Zhifeng Chen under a new multi-manager structure, replacing Pang’s centralized reporting style. Potential new managers in the reshuffled team include Chong Wang, Zirui Wang, Chung-Cheng Chiu, and Guoli Yin, though internal morale appears shaky with more exits anticipated.
Tom Gunter, Pang’s former deputy, also left Apple last month, intensifying concerns about a talent drain in one of Apple’s most strategic teams. Pang’s move represents Apple’s most significant AI executive loss since its work on Apple Intelligence began, amplifying competitive pressures in the rapidly advancing generative AI sector.
Meta, meanwhile, is expected to spend tens of billions of dollars on AI infrastructure in 2025 alone, focusing heavily on data centers and custom AI chips. Its latest organizational moves and billion-dollar bets signal a long-term commitment to owning the next frontier of artificial general intelligence.
Apple, despite unveiling Apple Intelligence at WWDC 2025, leaned heavily on third-party partners like OpenAI and Google for key features. Tools such as code completion in Xcode and on-device image analysis now rely partly on external models, highlighting Apple’s internal AI model development challenges.
With Pang gone and internal realignment underway, Apple’s ability to retain top AI talent—and remain competitive in a high-stakes generative AI race—has never been more uncertain. The departure exemplifies a growing pattern across Silicon Valley, where companies like Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic are luring talent with eye-watering compensation and a chance to build the future of AI.
