Meta’s Muse AI App Hits 5 Million Downloads Under Alexandr Wang

Meta has a breakout artificial intelligence product, and the credit is going to a 29-year-old billionaire. The Meta Muse app, which handles multi-step tasks and runs actions in the background for users, passed 5 million U.S. downloads 22 days after its September 8 launch, according to Mashable. Meta’s stock has climbed nearly 20% since Muse debuted, and the app is reportedly gaining users faster than ChatGPT did.

The Dropout Behind the Product

Alexandr Wang, an MIT dropout, co-founded data-labeling startup Scale AI and became one of the world’s youngest self-made billionaires. Mark Zuckerberg recruited him in June 2025, after Meta invested $14 billion for a 49% stake in Scale. The Wall Street Journal reports that Wang is now Meta’s first Gen Z senior executive, placing him at the center of the company’s AI ambitions.

Wang’s style is far from typical for a senior executive. He appeared onstage at Meta’s developer conference in a thrift-store camouflage T-shirt and Crocs. He has also flooded X with Muse memes, some of which show the app’s blob mascot in suggestive poses.

Pay Packages Spark Internal Friction

For now, Muse’s early numbers give Wang strong momentum. The challenge for Meta will be keeping that growth going while managing morale among the employees who are watching his team’s rise.

Not everyone inside Meta is celebrating. Employees have been irked by the sky-high pay packages offered to the elite hires in Wang’s TBD Lab, and by the special treatment some feel his recruits receive. Mike Volpi, a Scale AI board member, told the Journal that the arrangement is likely to upset some colleagues.