Mark Zuckerberg’s $1.5 Billion Offer Rejected by Mira Murati’s AI Cofounder

In Silicon Valley, there's a popular adage: never bet against Mark Zuckerberg. The Meta CEO is known for his relentless ambition and a track record of usually getting what he wants. But in a rare twist, Zuckerberg has faced an unexpected roadblock - and he's reportedly not pleased.

According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, Zuckerberg recently approached Mira Murati, the former CTO of OpenAI, with an offer to acquire her AI startup, Thinking Machines Lab, for $1 billion. Murati, however, turned him down. In response, Zuckerberg initiated what's being described as a "full-scale raid" to recruit her top talent instead.

One of the prime targets was Andrew Tulloch, a renowned machine learning expert and cofounder of Thinking Machines. Meta reportedly extended a staggering $1.5 billion offer to Tulloch over a six-year period. Despite the extraordinary package, Tulloch declined the offer.

Tulloch, who previously worked at Meta from 2012 to 2023, is well known for his contributions to machine learning infrastructure and for co-developing PyTorch, a major AI research tool. After a brief stint at OpenAI, where he worked on GPT-4's pre-training and reasoning models, he partnered with Murati in early 2025 to launch Thinking Machines Lab.

The WSJ reports that Meta's recruitment efforts didn't stop at Tulloch. The company reportedly attempted to poach more than a dozen engineers from the startup and has been on a larger industry-wide hiring spree as part of Zuckerberg's ambitions to build a "Superintelligence" AI dream team. This campaign includes direct outreach by Zuckerberg himself and generous offers with massive compensation.

Meta has also been actively targeting talent from OpenAI, Anthropic (founded by Dario Amodei), and other top-tier AI ventures. According to the report, more than 100 OpenAI employees have been contacted, and at least 10 have joined Meta.

Despite Tulloch's refusal, others have accepted. One notable example is 24-year-old Matt Deitke, who initially turned down Meta's $125 million offer. Zuckerberg later met him in person and doubled the package to $250 million, including $100 million guaranteed in the first year. This persistence convinced Deitke to come aboard.

Tulloch's decision to stay could be influenced by his potential equity in Thinking Machines Lab, now valued at over $30 billion, and his commitment to the startup's mission. Online speculation suggests he is deeply invested in the company's future, both financially and professionally.

A spokesperson for Meta, Andy Stone, dismissed the $1.5 billion figure as "inaccurate and ridiculous," clarifying that such compensation packages are tied to Meta's stock performance. Stone also denied that Meta ever attempted to acquire Thinking Machines Lab.

Tulloch, a graduate of the University of Sydney with top honors and a University Medal in mathematics, also holds a Master's from Cambridge and is pursuing a Ph.D. at UC Berkeley.