Externally, Silicon Valley appears serene. Meta's share prices seem to have recovered, its AI presentations seem trendy, and its leader, Mark Zuckerberg, seems confident about the future. However, internally at Meta's headquarters, there is a battle royale playing out, with major consequences for its $600 billion AI plan.
In the middle of all this is Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Alexandr Wang, Meta’s budding star and 28-year-old prodigy in the field of Artificial Intelligence.
Last year, Zuckerburg made news for acquiring a 49% stake in the AI company Scale AI at a staggering price of $14 billion. This acquisition inducted the founder of Scale AI, Alexandr Wang, into Meta, making him the highest-paid employee in Meta and the custodian of its AI ambitions.
Wang was not just another hire for an executive position. He represented Meta’s transformation, from being a social media behemoth to an AI-first firm that could compete with OpenAI and Google Gemini. Within Meta, he was perceived as the one who could help the firm overcome its rivals in the superintelligence sprint.
However, the honeymoon period didn't last long.
According to the Financial Times, Wang has privately complained that Meta's "tight grip" on AI development is stifling innovation. The constant oversight, he believes, is slowing teams down at a time when speed is everything.
Multiple media reports say Wang is deeply frustrated by Zuckerberg's hands-on management style. While Zuckerberg believes in hands-on involvement with anything as critical as AI, Wang prefers to be left alone: he wants to run his team on his own rules, not under constant supervision.
It is a difference in leadership philosophy that has now grown to become a serious fault line.
Tensions are not restricted to him alone. Wang reportedly repeatedly clashed with Meta heavyweights Chris Cox and Andrew Bosworth over AI strategy.
Cox and Bosworth want Wang's new AI models tightly integrated with Meta's core products, Instagram and Facebook. Wang wants to build AI that stands toe-to-toe with OpenAI and Google Gemini, not just powers feeds and ads.
What started out as a tactical difference of opinion has turned into an intra-agency turf fight.
This has reportedly engendered an “us versus them” mentality among Meta’s AI team. Wang’s vision is very much long-term: Developing superintelligence to mark the next phase of computing. Meta’s management seems to be immediately interested in its monetization, advertisement, and product engagement.
The balance of power was turned on its head once more when Zuckerberg announced Meta Compute, a new top-level division which he said would be answerable only to him. There is little doubt that the final say on AI is with Zuckerberg.
While Meta continues to spend billion dollars on AI infrastructure, it appears that the CEO is not going to trust all to the 28-year-old founder, even if he is that brilliant.
This is more than a ego battle. This is a fight about Meta’s future. Can visionary founders succeed with Zuckerberg’s restrictive leadership, or will Meta’s fixation with control lead to Meta’s loss in the race of AI?
