In a move that’s making waves across the AI landscape, Scale AI has confirmed a “significant” investment from Meta, valuing the company at a massive $29 billion. Sources close to the deal say Meta is putting in around $14.3 billion for a 49% ownership stake, giving the social media giant major influence in one of the most critical companies in AI infrastructure.
But that’s not the only headline.
Alexandr Wang, Scale AI’s co-founder and CEO, is officially stepping down and heading to Meta to join its superintelligence efforts. While Wang will no longer lead the company he built, he’ll remain on Scale AI’s board as a director.
Meta confirmed the move in a statement:
“Meta has finalized our strategic partnership and investment in Scale AI. As part of this, 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.”
This deal strengthens Meta’s position in the increasingly competitive generative AI space, where it’s been trailing behind rivals like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic. According to internal data from SignalFire, Meta lost over 4% of its top AI talent to competing labs last year. Partnering with Scale AI, which has quietly become a backbone for AI training data, may help reverse that trend.
Scale AI plays a vital role in the AI supply chain, producing and labelling massive amounts of high-quality data that powers large language models. Major AI labs have relied on Scale AI services for years, and the company recently began recruiting top-tier talent, including PhD researchers and senior engineers, to meet growing demand for premium annotated data.
Wang’s departure marks a strategic shift. Stepping in as interim CEO is Jason Droege, currently Scale’s Chief Strategy Officer and a former Uber executive. Despite the leadership shakeup, Scale AI says it will continue operating independently.