In one of the most talked-about tech deals of the year, Meta has made a staggering $15 billion investment to acquire a 49% stake in Scale AI — the data company co-founded by 28-year-old Alexandr Wang. The deal not only values Scale AI at nearly $30 billion — double its previous valuation — but also marks a significant shift in Meta’s artificial intelligence strategy.
At first glance, the massive buy-in appears aimed at cementing Meta’s access to Scale AI’s data services, which are crucial for training large language models and advancing AI capabilities. However, industry insiders widely view this as one of the most expensive acquihires ever. The real prize? Alexandr Wang himself.
“This is a very expensive acquihire of Alexandr Wang,” noted tech analyst Ben Thompson, capturing the sentiment shared across Silicon Valley. While acquihires typically involve smaller, struggling startups selling primarily for talent, Meta’s move supersizes the concept, reminiscent of Apple’s $3 billion Beats acquisition — where the goal was to bring cofounder Jimmy Iovine’s vision into Apple’s fold rather than to dominate the headphone market.
Meta confirmed the deal late Thursday, stating:
“Meta has finalized our strategic partnership and investment in Scale AI. As part of this, we will deepen the work we do together producing data for AI models, and Alexandr Wang will join Meta to work on our superintelligence efforts.”
The move positions Wang at the heart of Meta’s new AI lab, where Mark Zuckerberg is assembling what could be described as a “superteam” of AI talent. This follows a broader industry trend where big tech players pay astronomical sums to secure not just technology, but the people behind it. Microsoft’s reported $650 million licensing deal with Inflection AI and Google’s $2.7 billion deal for Character.AI fall in a similar vein.
What makes this acquisition especially notable is that Wang isn’t regarded as an elite AI researcher. Rather, he’s seen as a sharp business mind with technical acumen — someone who excels at scaling companies and promoting AI services rather than pushing the frontiers of AI science himself. That hasn’t deterred Meta. With AI now central to the company’s vision, Zuckerberg appears convinced that bringing Wang and his leadership into Meta’s ecosystem is worth the hefty price tag.
Skeptics point to Meta’s mixed history of big-ticket talent acquisitions — from Instagram’s cofounders to WhatsApp’s team — many of whom eventually exited the company. Yet, for a tech giant betting its future on AI, Zuckerberg is willing to take that risk.
For Wang, this move propels him into the ranks of the most sought-after minds in AI, underscoring how valuable leadership, vision, and data infrastructure have become in the race toward AI dominance.