^{This article originally appeared on Business Insider.}

AI engineers working on Tesla there may be Sam Altman AND OpenAI to thank them for their wages.

CEO of Tesla Elon Musk said Wednesday that his company is increasing compensation packages for those working on the AI ​​engineering team. The salary increase, Musk said, was in response to OpenAI's efforts to poach Tesla engineers.

Tesla is increasing the ranks (depending on progress achieved) of our AI engineering team

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2024

“They've been aggressively recruiting Tesla engineers with massive compensation offers, and unfortunately they've been successful in some cases,” Musk said of OpenAI's hiring efforts at a X post Wednesday.

Musk made these comments in response to a story from information which was published on the same day. Tesla machine learning scientist Ethan Knight is moving to join Musk's AI company xAI, according to the report.

“Ethan was going to join OpenAI, so it was either xAI or them,” Musk wrote on X.

Ethan was going to join OpenAI so it was either xAI or them.

They have been aggressively recruiting Tesla engineers with massive compensation offers and have unfortunately been successful in some cases.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 3, 2024

Representatives for OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

Competition for AI talent has heated up as tech companies race to become dominant players in the field. In addition to offering eye-popping salaries, some Big Tech executives have adopted a personal touch when it comes to wooing engineers.

Meta's Mark Zuckerberg is said to have been writing personal emails to AI researchers in Google's DeepMind, for information. In fact, Zuckerberg's Meta has even offered jobs to candidates without conducting any interviews, the paper reported.

Zuckerberg is not the only one who has had to make personal contacts. Google co-founder Sergey Brin had to call an employee personally who was considering leaving Google for OpenAI. According to Information According to the report, Brin made several promises to convince the employee to stay, including an offer of higher pay.

“The AI ​​talent war is the craziest talent war I've ever seen!” Musk said Wednesday.