Meta lets go of Virtue AI safety hires after four months
A safety startup team that joined en masse is already leaving; Meta's AI-safety commitment and its staffing moves are diverging.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told Semafor the company is letting go of employees hired in June from AI safety startup Virtue AI, citing clashing work styles.
Virtue AI's three co-founders — Bo Li, Dawn Song and Sanmi Koyejo — joined Meta with other employees in June. The startup had previously done safety work for Anthropic, OpenAI and the Commerce Department's NIST. Stone said Meta Superintelligence Labs remains focused on AI safety, alignment and frontier risk.
The size of the layoffs and where the team members are headed were not disclosed, and the team did not respond to requests for comment. With regulation calls rising again in Washington, whether safety staff stay is a direct test of Meta's safety commitments.
Sources:https://www.semafor.com/article/10/02/2026/meta-parts-ways-with-virtue-aihttps://www.axios.com/2026/06/25/meta-hires-virtue-ai-founders-security