Mark Zuckerberg, once the purveyor of the metaverse, is now positioning himself as the leading figure in the burgeoning age of superintelligence, raising questions about the credibility of his latest ambitious venture. Elon Musk, a frequent critic, once dubbed him “Zuck the Fourteenth,” a comparison to France’s self-aggrandizing King Louis XIV, a label that seems fitting given Zuckerberg’s current media omnipresence as he attempts to crown himself Silicon Valley’s new AI monarch.

It was only a few years ago, specifically on October 28, 2021, that Zuckerberg unveiled a dramatic rebranding of Facebook to Meta Platforms, declaring the “metaverse is the next frontier.” This vision promised a revolutionary 3D immersive virtual world where individuals would interact as digital avatars, powered by Meta-manufactured VR headsets and smart glasses. Meta poured an astonishing nearly $20 billion into its Reality Labs division within a single year, aiming to construct this digital utopia and offer a seamless escape into a vibrant virtual reality. However, this grand promise failed to materialize. User adoption lagged significantly despite the colossal investment, and Meta’s flagship metaverse platform, Horizon Worlds, struggled to maintain user interest. The technology—clunky headsets and buggy software—proved cumbersome, and the practical applications remained unclear, ultimately leading to the metaverse’s widespread failure.

Undeterred, Zuckerberg is now attempting to persuade the public and the tech industry that he is spearheading the charge into the next monumental technological wave: artificial general intelligence (AGI), or superintelligence. AGI represents the ultimate goal of AI development, a point where machines achieve or surpass human-level intelligence across virtually all cognitive tasks, moving from the realm of science fiction into tangible reality. Yet, despite Zuckerberg’s bold claims, Meta is not currently at the forefront of this race. Competitors such as OpenAI, Google’s Gemini, and China’s DeepSeek have already developed more advanced models and tools. While Meta’s LLaMA models are competent, they are not considered groundbreaking, with the company’s most significant contribution to the AI arms race to date being the decision to make its large language models open source.

Recognizing this gap, Zuckerberg is adopting an aggressive strategy to catch up, primarily by leveraging Meta’s substantial financial resources. The company has initiated an intense poaching campaign, offering “giant offers” to lure top AI researchers. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has even indicated that some of these offers exceed $100 million. Meta has already successfully attracted significant talent, including Alexandr Wang (founder of Scale AI), Nat Friedman (former GitHub CEO), and several veterans from OpenAI such as Shengjia Zhao, Shuchao Bi, Jiahui Yu, and Hongyu Ren.

Zuckerberg has made his intentions clear, publicly announcing the formation of Meta Superintelligence Labs. This ambitious initiative aims to centralize all of Meta’s AI efforts, intending to leapfrog the competition. In an internal memo, he articulated a vision for “personal superintelligence”—an AI capable of managing an individual’s life, scheduling, decision-making, and effectively serving as a personal brain assistant. He has also affirmed his commitment to continuous hiring in this critical area.

This dramatic pivot to AI is a shrewd strategic move, as AI is no longer mere hype but a transformative force reshaping industries and daily life. Regardless of whether one views it with apprehension or enthusiasm, AI is undeniably molding the next phase of human existence. However, the question remains whether Zuckerberg is the appropriate figurehead for this revolution. This is, after all, the same executive who once championed a future populated by legless cartoon avatars in virtual reality and who invested tens of billions into a virtual world that failed to attract widespread adoption. Now, he asks for trust on AGI, a technology with the potential to fundamentally alter global economies and human labor.

Critics argue that Zuckerberg is not an AI visionary but rather a ruthless competitor who identifies the next major trend and then attempts to buy his way to the top. This pattern has been observed previously: unable to defeat TikTok, he cloned Reels; thwarted in acquiring Snapchat, he copied Stories. He is now applying this identical playbook to AI: recruit the best talent, articulate a grand vision, and hope past failures are forgotten. If anything, his aggressive pivot to AI underscores the profound importance and potential of this technological moment. When Zuckerberg starts spending on this scale, it signifies not curiosity but a profound desire for market dominance. This competitive drive, more than any supposed AI leadership, provides a compelling reason to pay attention, as he seeks to control who builds artificial superintelligence and under what rules it operates.