New Delhi: Alexandr Wang, the founder and CEO of Scale AI, told his employees that he’s leaving the company to join Meta (the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp). This news came right after reports that Meta was making a huge investment in Scale AI—about dollar14.3 billion—which gives Meta a 49% stake in the startup, but without any voting rights or control over its business decisions.
In his message to staff, Wang said that big chance sometimes require tough choices, and for him, that meant stepping down as CEO. He called his time leading Scale AI the best experience of his life. Jason Droege, who was Scale AI’s chief strategy officer and previously worked at Uber and Benchmark, will take over as the new CEO.
A few Scale AI employees will also move to Meta as part of this deal. Wang will be heading a new AI research lab at Meta, focusing on building advanced AI that could one day match or even surpass human abilities. Meta confirmed the partnership and said they’ll be working even closer with Scale AI to improve data for their AI models, and that more details about the new team will be shared soon.
Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is making AI the company’s main priority for 2025, especially since Meta has been trailing behind competitors like OpenAI and Google in the AI race. He believes bringing in Wang from outside the company is the best way to speed up Meta’s progress in this area, even though he usually prefers to promote from within.
Scale AI doesn’t build its own AI models. Instead, it helps companies like Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Meta by providing the huge, high-quality datasets they need to train their AI systems. Meta is already one of Scale AI’s largest customers.
Even with Meta’s investment and Wang’s move, Scale AI says its business with other clients—including Meta’s competitors—won’t be affected. Meta will not have access to Scale AI’s confidential business information or data.
Meta is investing billions in Scale AI and hiring its founder to lead a new AI lab, hoping this will help them catch up in the race to build the world’s most powerful AI. Scale AI gets a big cash boost and a new CEO, while promising to keep serving all its customers as usual.
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