Meta Cancelled Talks on Perplexity AI Deal

Meta Platforms held talks with Perplexity AI to buy the startup. The social media giant, however, moved on to invest billions in a stake in Scale AI instead.

Meta and Perplexity were unable to finalize the deal and noted that the financial terms under discussion were not available. Talks with Perplexity further highlight Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s effort to scale the company’s AI capabilities through deals and recruiting new employees.

In January, he stated the company plans a capex of $60 billion to $65 billion in 2025 as part of a plan to broaden its AI infrastructure. Meta ended up paying $14.3 billion for a 49% stake in Scale AI in a deal that included the latter’s CEO, Alexandr Wang, joining a new AI team at Meta.

Zuckerberg is personally recruiting around 50 people for a new team to spur the company’s artificial general intelligence (AGI) scheme. While he is in pursuit of AI talent, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated that his staff was approached by Meta with offers of $100 million signing bonuses and even larger compensation packages.