21 documented moves between frontier AI labs since 2025 — OpenAI fed Meta in 2025, then Google DeepMind bled in one June week

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”

Publicly announced direct lab-to-lab moves from January 2025 through 1 September 2026: 21 moves by 18 named researchers across OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta Superintelligence Labs, xAI and Thinking Machines Lab — a minimum documented set from accessible web coverage, not a census. Months are announcement months where start dates are unknown.

Colour is the destination lab: — hover a curve for the researcher, corridor and source

What the timeline can't say alone

The dominant 2025 corridor is OpenAI → Meta Superintelligence Labs: six of nine documented 2025 moves, five of them in June alone. 1027wbow.com

June 2026 flips the story: five senior researchers leave Google DeepMind in days — four to Anthropic (including Nobel laureate John Jumper) and Noam Shazeer to OpenAI. savvymonk.beehiiv.com

Barret Zoph moves three times in nineteen months: OpenAI → Thinking Machines Lab (Feb 2025), back to OpenAI (Jan 2026), then to Google DeepMind as VP of Research (Aug 2026). nerdstool.com

Luke Metz repeats too — Thinking Machines Lab → OpenAI in January 2026, then on to Meta Superintelligence Labs by August 2026. mitrade.com

Evidence is thin for most rows: 14 of the 21 moves rest on a single accessible source, so treat individual months as reported, not confirmed. we0.ai

Every documented move

Researcher	Left	Joined	Month	Role / area	Sources	Source

Direct employment moves between eight frontier labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta Superintelligence Labs, xAI, Thinking Machines Lab, Safe Superintelligence, Mistral), publicly announced 2025-01 to 2026-09-01; 21 moves compiled from 55 extracted press rows after deduplicating lab-name variants and duplicate months. Month is the announcement month when no start month was published. Policy, product and infrastructure-only roles, moves predating 2025, and rows with conflicting direction were excluded. Most moves carry one accessible source; this is a minimum documented set, not an industry census.

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