X makes neglected Meta employees an offer, lures engineers with snacks

X is courting Meta employees as unrest grows after layoffs and AI reshuffling. The move highlights how the AI race is increasingly centred on hiring and holding skilled talent.

In Short

• Meta's low employee morale is creating a hiring opportunity for X
• X's product chief joked about matching Meta's snack budget
• Layoffs and AI restructuring have unsettled many Meta employees

In the tech industry, one company's crisis often becomes another company's opportunity. As Meta struggles with low employee morale following mass layoffs and a sweeping AI-driven restructuring, rival X appears to be seizing the moment. The company is openly trying to recruit Meta employees, with X's head of product, Nikita Bier, even joking that the company would match or exceed Meta's snack budget to lure engineers and data scientists.

"Neglected Meta employees: X is hiring web and data engineers & scientists. We will match or even exceed any snack budget offer," Bier wrote in an X post.

The light-hearted pitch underscores a serious reality: as companies race to dominate AI, the battle is no longer just about building better models. It is increasingly about attracting and retaining the people capable of building them.

In a follow-up post, Bier shared a link to xAI's engineering job board and playfully told prospective applicants to mention "snacks" when applying.

Why are Meta employees unhappy?

The recruitment pitch comes at a time when Meta employees are grappling with sweeping changes inside the company. Meta has been facing growing concerns over employee morale after laying off around 8,000 employees in May this year and reorganising thousands more as part of a major push into artificial intelligence. Around 6,500 engineers and product managers were moved from different teams to work on AI projects.

Reports at the time suggested that employees were unhappy with the sweeping changes. Those concerns have since been publicly acknowledged by one of Meta's top executives.

According to a Business Insider report, Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew "Boz" Bosworth said employee morale is near an all-time low as recent mass layoffs and internal AI initiatives continue to unsettle many longtime employees.

Business Insider had previously reported that some employees referred to joining the mandatory AI task force as being "drafted" and viewed much of the work as data labelling.

The company also faced employee backlash in April over an initiative to track mouse movements and keystrokes to improve Meta's AI models.

Meta is trying to rebuild morale

Meta's leadership says it has already begun taking steps to improve morale. In a memo to staff, Bosworth wrote that Meta needs to "be the best place for the best people to do their best work" and said he hoped to "rekindle the best of the culture" that employees originally joined, according to a copy obtained by Business Insider and first reported by Wired.

But as Meta works to win back employee confidence, rivals appear eager to capitalise on the uncertainty.

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