In August he filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, accusing the company of offering “lavish compensation” to “starve competitors.” To evaluate Musk’s claim, Business Insider analyzed wage data from H-1B visa applications submitted by both companies in 2024. These filings, required for hiring foreign workers on specialty visas, provide a rare glimpse into otherwise private compensation data and reveal the “expensive war” for AI talent.
xAI, launched by Musk in July 2023, is a smaller operation compared to OpenAI, which he co-founded in 2015. According to PitchBook, xAI employs around 100 people while OpenAI has a payroll of 3,000. Visa filings show that xAI and OpenAI reported salary data for 10 and 86 positions, and they exceeded prevailing wages by 37% and 87%.
The prevailing wage, determined by the Department of Labor, represents the average compensation for a specific role in a given geographic area. Employers hiring H-1B workers must pay at least the prevailing wage.
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OpenAI and ChatGPT logos are seen in this illustration taken, Feb. 3, 2023. Photo by Reuters |
At xAI, salaries for the 10 roles ranged from $250,000 to $500,000 annually, with principal machine learning engineers earning the highest pay. OpenAI’s pay ranged from $145,000 to $530,000. In some cases, OpenAI paid more than three times the prevailing wage for technical staff.
Musk, Altman and representatives of the two companies did not respond to requests for comment.
Bloomberg previously reported that most OpenAI engineers earn $200,000-370,000 annually, with those in highly specialized roles getting $450,000. With bonuses, some employees’ total compensation approaches $800,000.
Musk first filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in March 2024 but later withdrew it, only to refile in August. In November he expanded his complaint, accusing OpenAI of antitrust violations and alleging the company pressured investors not to fund competitors. In December Musk requested a federal court to block OpenAI’s efforts to transition from a non-profit to a for-profit entity.
Founded in 2015 OpenAI has been moving toward a for-profit structure to attract more investors. In October the company completed a funding round, raising its valuation to $157 billion, according to Forbes.
