Meta’s ambitious push into artificial intelligence through its $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI is showing early signs of strain. Ruben Mayer, formerly Senior Vice President of GenAI Product and Operations at Scale AI, has exited Meta just two months after joining Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) under Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang. Mayer, who previously spent five years at Scale AI, was brought in to help establish Meta’s new lab but has now left citing personal reasons.
At the same time, Meta’s TBD Labs, the unit responsible for building AI superintelligence, is working with competing data-labeling vendors Mercor and Surge, despite the multibillion-dollar partnership with Scale AI. Several researchers have reportedly questioned the quality of Scale AI’s data, preferring competitors’ higher-grade labeling for training advanced AI systems.
The turbulence comes as Meta ramps up its AI efforts following CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s frustration with the underwhelming launch of Llama 4. Since then, Meta has aggressively recruited top AI talent from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic, while acquiring startups like Play AI and WaveForms AI and partnering with Midjourney. However, a string of high-profile departures from MSL, including researcher Rishabh Agarwal, has raised concerns about stability.
Despite the shakeups, Meta continues to expand its AI infrastructure with massive U.S. data center projects, including the $50 billion Hyperion facility in Louisiana, as it races to compete with OpenAI and Google in the next wave of AI innovation.
