Meta’s Zuckerberg, execs discuss ‘de-investing’ in Llama for competitors: report

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, have discussed “de-investing” in its Llama family of language models in favor of models made by competitors, The New York Times reported.

Meta could look to models from OpenAI and Anthropic, the news outlet added, citing two people familiar with the matter. While no final decision has been made on the matter, it would mean turning towards the “closed” approach to models, whereas Llama is open source and can be tweaked by others.

OpenAI is largely backed by Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and SoftBank (OTCPK:SFTBY), while Anthropic is backed by Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) and others.

Meta, OpenAI and Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Seeking Alpha.

Meta released the first models from its Llama 4 series in April at its LlamaCon event, however the new model did not perform as well as rivals. Additionally, a number of developers left the event feeling underwhelmed, the news outlet added.

Since the release of Llama 4, Meta has gone on a spending spree to catch up with competitors.

Earlier this month, the company announced a deal to spend $14.3B to acquire nearly half of Scale AI. A key aspect of the deal includes Scale CEO Alexandr Wang joining Meta to head its “superintelligence” team focused on artificial general intelligence.

The company has also offered significant pay packages to bring AI researchers from OpenAI into Meta, including highly respected OpenAI researcher Trapit Bansal. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said Meta was offering $100M signing bonuses in an attempt to poach his employees.

Meta is also reportedly in the final stages of acquiring PlayAI, a California-based startup that specializes in generating AI voices that are human-like.

The Zuckerberg-led Meta also reportedly discussed acquiring Perplexity AI prior to its multi-billion dollar investment into Scale AI. Apple (AAPL) has also reportedly discussed acquiring or partnering with Perplexity AI).

Deals with Runway AI and FuriosaAI were also considered, prior to Meta’s Scale AI investment.