Scale AI's Alexandr Wang to join Meta's superintelligence mission; Jason Dorege to be interim CEO of startup

As Mark Zuckerberg bolsters his Artificial Intelligence mission by acquiring a 49% stake in data labeling startup Scale AI, founder Alexandr Wang has departed from his role as the CEO of the company. Wang will be joining the Superintelligence mission of Meta.

In an internal memo to employees, Wang said that a large social networking company is pumping $14.3 billion into Scale AI, therefore, he is departing from his role as CEO.

"As you’ve probably gathered from recent news, opportunities of this magnitude often come at a cost. In this instance, that cost is my departure. It has been the absolute greatest pleasure of my life to serve as your CEO," Wang told employees in an internal memo.

Some employees of Scale AI will also work for Meta as part of the agreement, Wang added. Currently, the company has a team of 1,500 people.

Following this, Scale AI's chief strategy officer Jason Dorege will step in as interim Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the startup.

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Previously, Dorege has played a significant role in businesses like Uber Eats and AXON. He is working closely with Scale AI's board to hire strong Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to bolster engineering teams, Wang said.

According to a Reuters report, the deal value of Meta-Scale AI is estimated to be $29 billion. Zuckerberg has claimed several times that AI is his top priority for 2025 amid fierce competition from OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet.

Zuckerberg has traditionally placed his company's employees into high-ranking positions, but this time he has delegated the duty to Wang to oversee Meta's superintelligence efforts.

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"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," Meta said in a statement.

The deal would rank Meta's second-largest-ever deal after its $19 billion buyout of WhatsApp.

'Alexandr Wang and his Scale AI venture'

Wang, born in Los Alamos, New Mexico, to Chinese immigrant physicists, co-founded Scale AI in 2016. The MIT dropped out and earned plaudits as one of Silicon Valley's most promising entrepreneurs. Wang cultivated relationships with top tech executives such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and achieved billionaire status in his 20s.

Meanwhile, Scale AI provides vast amounts of accurately labeled data, pivotal for training AI software like ChatGPT. The company's valuation was nearly $14 billion in May 2024 following receiving funding from Nvidia and Amazon.