by Kurt Wagner, Rachel Metz and Shirin Ghaffary
Meta Platforms Inc. has finalized a multibillion-dollar investment in Scale AI and recruited the startup’s chief executive officer to join its artificial intelligence efforts — an unusual deal that signals a heightened push by the social media giant to catch up on AI development.
Meta said Thursday that it has backed Scale, without including details. The size of the investment was $14.3 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. The deal values the startup at more than $29 billion, including the money raised, Scale said in a blog post Thursday.
As part of the investment, Scale CEO and co-founder Alexandr Wang is set to take on a new role at Meta on its AI team. Wang will join the company’s “superintelligence” unit, focused on building AI that performs as well as humans, a hypothetical advance often referred to as artificial general intelligence. Wang will stay on at Scale as a board member.
“Meta has finalized our strategic partnership and investment in Scale AI,” a Meta spokesperson said. “As part of this, we will deepen the work we do together producing data for AI models.”
Meta will take a 49% stake in the company, said the person familiar, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Meta is purchasing nonvoting shares. Bloomberg News previously reported Meta was in talks with Scale.
In a statement on Thursday, Wang said that the investment “recognizes Scale’s accomplishments” and underscores the importance of AI technology. “AI is one of the most revolutionary technologies of our time, with unlimited possibility and far-reaching influence on how people, businesses and governments succeed,” he said.
Scale’s new interim CEO will be Jason Droege. In a statement, the company said that even after its Meta partnership, “Scale remains an independent leader in AI, committed to providing industry-leading AI solutions and safeguarding customer data.”
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, has made AI the top focus at his social networking company this year, earmarking tens of billions of dollars for AI-related infrastructure and hiring. But Zuckerberg has grown frustrated with Meta’s progress following the rollout of the company’s latest large language model, Llama 4, which was widely viewed as underwhelming.
In the months since that April launch, Zuckerberg has taken a more hands-on approach. He’s made recruiting AI experts and scientists for the new superintelligence team a top priority, hosting job candidates at his homes in Lake Tahoe and Palo Alto, California, and even rearranged Meta’s office so that the new group will be closer to his desk, Bloomberg News has reported. Meta and Zuckerberg have offered lucrative pay packages to poach top researchers from Alphabet Inc.’s Google and startup Sesame AI Inc.
With the Scale deal, Zuckerberg, who rarely makes major investments in startups, appears to be using a playbook similar to Amazon.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Google. Each of those Big Tech companies struck deals with prominent AI startups and scooped up some of their top talent, an arrangement viewed by some as designed to avoid the regulatory scrutiny that comes with large acquisitions. Meta was recently in federal court fighting monopoly claims from the Federal Trade Commission.
Unlike the other startups, however, Scale is not focused on building large language models. Founded in 2016, Scale offers data services to help companies, including Meta and OpenAI, train and improve their AI systems. It also builds custom AI applications for businesses and governments.
The Scale tie-up may allow Meta to gain ground on Google and OpenAI in AI development as well as help it deepen ties with the US government as it pushes more into defense tech. Wang, 28, is an adept networker who has built relationships with lawmakers, including through lobbying spending.
Scale also has seen strong business traction. The startup generated about $870 million in revenue in 2024 and expects $2 billion in revenue this year, Bloomberg News reported in April. Scale was previously valued at about $14 billion in a round last year.
“It’s clear Meta is going aggressively after this because they don’t want to be left behind,” said Shweta Khajuria, a Wolfe Research analyst, in an interview. “An investment this aggressive implies not only that it’s important to the company, but that they need it,” she added, noting that the deal signals that Meta “doesn’t have confidence in their ability to stay ahead.”
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