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Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg’s enormous wager on artificial intelligence is beginning to look far less reckless. The $14.3 billion deal he made in 2025 to bring over all the employees of Scale AI, including Alexandr Wang, now appears to be delivering substantial results.

Wang received about $5 billion as part of the deal, a price that initially attracted skepticism. Yet Meta’s latest AI products, download figures, hardware announcements, and soaring market value have sharply changed the calculation.

Tech investor Adam Khoo argued that the cost must be measured against the value Wang’s leadership could create for Meta.

“People thought Mark Zuckerberg was crazy when Meta paid Alexandr Wang $5 billion to be Meta's Chief AI Officer. At the time, the price looked outrageous,” Khoo said in an X post.

“Fast-forward to today: Meta's new AI products developed under Wang's leadership have added roughly $200 billion in market value. Suddenly, paying billions to secure world-class talent doesn't look quite so crazy.”

Khoo said the crucial question is not simply what a talented person costs, but how much value that individual can create. In Meta’s case, the company’s recent market performance has made the original price look considerably smaller.

The deal has effectively transformed perceptions of Meta’s place in AI. Instead of appearing late to the technology, the company is now being viewed as a leader, powered by products developed under Wang’s direction.

Meta reinforced that shift at Meta Connect late Wednesday. The event’s Steve Jobs style surprise was the Muse Charm, a standalone pocket device created exclusively for voice interaction with the company’s new Muse agent.

Muse is currently among the most downloaded applications and has become a major force behind Meta’s stock market momentum this week. The agent’s rapid rise has given investors a tangible measure of consumer interest in the company’s AI strategy.

Zuckerberg also presented a broader move toward what Meta calls “Personal Superintelligence.” That vision took physical form through the Meta VR Glasses, which combine artificial intelligence with spatial computing hardware.

The $1,299 glasses weigh 100 grams, roughly one fifth the weight of Meta’s Quest 3. They include 5K micro OLED displays, native eye and hand tracking, and processing through a tethered puck.

Meta also expanded its smart eyewear lineup with the third generation Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 glasses. Those glasses begin at an entry price of $249, giving the company another product aimed at bringing AI features into wearable devices.

The company introduced camera free Ray-Ban Meta Audio glasses as well. That model is designed specifically for open ear listening and AI voice interaction, offering a different approach from Meta’s camera equipped products.

Wang played a prominent role onstage during the presentation and delivered a presentation of his own while wearing camo Crocs. His visibility reflected the central position he now holds in Meta’s AI push.

Investors were already enjoying a remarkable week before the hardware showcase. The Muse AI agent had climbed to the top position on Apple’s App Store, giving Meta a high profile consumer success in a fiercely watched market.

According to the latest data from Sensor Tower, Muse recorded 2.8 million downloads during its first 12 days across the United States and Canada App Stores. That early performance also put the agent ahead of OpenAI’s ChatGPT by the same adoption measure.

Muse generated 1.8 million downloads in its first 12 days, compared with 1.3 million for ChatGPT. The Meta agent also established a new United States daily download record of 264,000 on Sept. 19.

That record came during Muse’s third consecutive day with more than 200,000 downloads. The sustained pace helped explain why enthusiasm around the product quickly spilled into Meta’s market valuation.

Meta added about $234 billion to its market capitalization over the past five days. That increase is far larger than the $14.3 billion committed to the Scale AI deal, making Zuckerberg’s costly recruitment decision look increasingly well timed.

The numbers do not settle every question surrounding Meta’s expanding AI ambitions, but they show why investors have embraced Muse and Wang’s leadership. A deal once portrayed as outrageously expensive is now being measured against hundreds of billions of dollars in added market value.

DISCLAIMER: GoldInvestors.news is not a registered investment, legal or tax advisor or broker/dealer. All investment/financial opinions expressed by GoldInvestors.news are from the personal research and experience of the owner of the site and are intended as educational material. Although best efforts are made to ensure that all information is accurate and up to date, occasionally unintended errors and misprints may occur.