OpenAI to Meta is the busiest corridor of the frontier-lab talent war, with 14 of 50 documented moves

Asked:

“Which AI researchers moved between frontier labs since 2025? For each move list the researcher, the lab they left, where they went and the month.”

A live-web scan collected 50 publicly reported researcher moves between frontier labs from January 2025 through September 10, 2026, backed by 11 independent source hosts. No authoritative roster of frontier-lab transfers exists, so this is documented public reporting — a best-effort ledger, not a provably complete universe. Three of the 50 rows have no retained source link and are marked low-confidence.

Every move by month, from origin lab to destination lab

13 researchers left OpenAI for Meta in June–July 2025 alone — the superintelligence-lab hiring wave — several confirmed in one batch. reuters.com

The flow reversed in 2026: Thinking Machines Lab lost four researchers back to OpenAI, including cofounder-level departures such as Barret Zoph and Lilian Weng. wired.com

Anthropic only gained in this ledger’s 2026 stretch — 7 of the 17 moves dated 2026 land there, from OpenAI and Google DeepMind. businessinsider.com

Meta is not only a buyer: it lost nine researchers over the period, to xAI, OpenAI, Anthropic and Thinking Machines Lab. businessinsider.com

All 50 documented moves

Researcher	Left	Joined	Month	Pages	Source

Method: live-web scan of public reporting, 50 rows (one per researcher per distinct move), January 2025 – September 10, 2026, across 11 independent hosts; the most-used single URL backs 6 of 50 rows. “Frontier lab” means a dedicated lab or major-company unit building general-purpose frontier foundation models; university moves, policy roles, investors and ordinary product teams are excluded. Months reflect the join or firm public confirmation where available; some sources give only a resignation month. Three rows lack a retained source URL and are marked unlinked / low confidence. Pages = corroborating pages found for the move.

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