Meta’s mid-2025 raid on OpenAI set off 41 publicly reported researcher moves across the frontier labs

Which AI researchers moved between frontier labs since 2025 — who left which lab, where they went, and when? This census covers 41 curated move events by 34 researchers among OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta, xAI, Thinking Machines Lab, Safe Superintelligence and Mistral AI, February 2025 through August 2026, dated by the month each move was publicly reported.

joined Metajoined OpenAIjoined Thinking Machines Labjoined Anthropicjoined Google DeepMind◆ repeat mover (moved more than once)

Meta absorbed 20 of the 41 moves — 13 of them from OpenAI, concentrated in June–July 2025 — the single dominant pattern of the period. europesays.com

Thinking Machines Lab both gained 6 researchers and lost 7: five of its early hires, including Barrett Zoph and Luke Metz, returned to OpenAI in January 2026. infobuxx.com

OpenAI counter-hired 13 researchers — from Meta, xAI and Thinking Machines Lab — after losing 19, the largest outflow of any lab. whbl.com

Five researchers moved more than once: Barrett Zoph and Luke Metz each moved three times; Ethan Knight, Andrew Tulloch and Lilian Weng twice. Nobel laureate John Jumper left Google DeepMind for Anthropic in June 2026. grokipedia.com

Month	Researcher	Left	Joined	Role or specialty	Source

Best-effort census of publicly reported direct moves by technical AI researchers and research leaders among eight frontier labs, curated from 101 raw reporting rows down to 41 deduplicated move events (34 unique researchers), Feb 2025 – Aug 2026. Month is the month the move was publicly reported when an exact start month is unavailable; “Meta Superintelligence Labs” is counted as Meta and “Google” as Google DeepMind. Advisers who did not join as staff, non-research executives, retrospective former-employer references and moves predating 2025 were excluded. Undisclosed transfers and exact start dates may be absent; counts are publicly identified, not exhaustive.

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