OpenAI fed Meta's 2025 hiring blitz; in 2026 the exodus turned on Google DeepMind

Which AI researchers moved between frontier labs since 2025 — who left which lab, where they went, and in which month?

34 reported moves across OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta, xAI and Thinking Machines Lab, January 2025 – August 2026. Month is the month the move was reported when no start month was published.

joined Metajoined Anthropicjoined OpenAIjoined Google DeepMindjoined xAIdashed = single-source report

The June 2025 cohort alone moved nine researchers into Meta — seven of them straight from OpenAI, including Shengjia Zhao, later named chief scientist of the Superintelligence Lab. reuters.com

In one June 2026 week Google DeepMind lost Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer to OpenAI and Nobel laureate John Jumper to Anthropic. reuters.com

Luke Metz appears twice: he rejoined OpenAI in January 2026, then left again for Meta in August — his third frontier lab in eight months. thenextweb.com

Thinking Machines Lab lost co-founders in three directions: Andrew Tulloch to Meta, Lilian Weng to OpenAI, and Barret Zoph — via OpenAI — to Google DeepMind. techcrunch.com

Every move, one row each

Month	Researcher	Left	Joined	Source

Moves compiled from Reuters, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Business Insider, Wired and other reporting: 34 rows, one per move, covering January 2025 to 29 August 2026. Month means the reported or announced month when an exact start month was unavailable; blank cells are unresolved in the sources; rows marked “single-source” rest on one non-wire outlet. Moves involving only Apple, Tencent or non-frontier employers were excluded, and syndicated duplicates were removed. No aggregate totals are shown because none were supplied precomputed.

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