AI Weekly: Alibaba Bonuses, DeepSeek Vision, Musk's $0

A packed week in AI and tech brought major shakeups across compensation, product launches, and regulatory action. From Alibaba boosting year-end bonuses for top performers to DeepSeek quietly dropping — then removing — a multimodal model report, and Elon Musk drawing $0 from Tesla in 2024, here is everything that mattered.

Key Takeaways This Week

• Alibaba is raising year-end bonuses by 1-2 months for high-performing employees and accelerating equity vesting for new hires
• DeepSeek published a multimodal model technical report on GitHub before mysteriously deleting it, while extending V4-Pro promotional pricing
• Dreame Technology CEO Yu Hao mandated all employees open social media accounts and post 3 videos daily
• Meta's acquisition of Manus was officially blocked by China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)
• Musk earned $0 in total compensation from Tesla last year
• OpenAI ended its exclusive partnership with Microsoft, making models available on Amazon AWS

Alibaba Rewards Top Talent With Bigger Bonuses and Faster Vesting

Alibaba is doubling down on retaining its best people. The Chinese tech giant announced that high-performing employees will see their year-end bonuses increased by 1-2 additional months of salary, a significant bump in a market where tech layoffs and cost-cutting have dominated headlines.

Perhaps more notably, new hires will now see nearly one-third of their long-term equity incentives vest in the first year. This front-loaded vesting schedule marks a departure from the traditional 4-year cliff-and-graded approach common across most major tech firms, including Western counterparts like Google and Meta.

The move signals Alibaba's aggressive push to attract and retain AI talent amid fierce competition. With companies like ByteDance, Tencent, and numerous AI startups all competing for the same pool of engineers and researchers, compensation packages have become a critical battleground. For context, top AI researchers in China can command packages rivaling those offered in Silicon Valley, often exceeding $500,000 annually when equity is included.

DeepSeek Drops Multimodal Model Report — Then Deletes It

In one of the week's most intriguing developments, DeepSeek published a technical report for its new multimodal model on GitHub on April 30, giving the AI community its first look at the company's vision capabilities. The model can finally 'see' — processing and reasoning about images alongside text.

However, the paper was mysteriously removed shortly after publication. No official explanation was provided, fueling speculation about whether the deletion was related to regulatory concerns, competitive strategy, or simply premature publication.

Before it disappeared, researchers noted that the technical report addressed a key limitation in current multimodal large language models. DeepSeek highlighted that mainstream chain-of-thought (CoT) reasoning paradigms remain largely confined to the linguistic domain, even as recent research has focused on high-resolution cropping techniques to improve visual understanding.

Meanwhile, DeepSeek extended the promotional pricing for its V4-Pro model, suggesting the company is still actively building its user base. The combination of cutting-edge research and aggressive pricing continues to position DeepSeek as one of the most disruptive players in the Chinese AI landscape, often drawing comparisons to OpenAI's approach in the West.

Dreame CEO's Controversial Social Media Mandate

Dreame Technology CEO Yu Hao raised eyebrows across the industry by requiring all employees to create social media accounts and post 3 videos per day. The mandate applies company-wide, regardless of role or department.

The directive reflects a growing trend among Chinese tech companies to leverage employee networks for brand building and marketing. However, it has sparked significant debate about:

• Work-life boundaries — forcing personal social media use for corporate purposes
• Content quality — whether 3 daily videos from non-content-professionals adds value or creates noise
• Employee autonomy — the ethics of mandating personal brand activities
• Productivity concerns — time spent creating content versus core job responsibilities

Dreame, known primarily for its robotic vacuum cleaners and smart home products, appears to be betting that employee-generated content can amplify its brand presence. This approach mirrors strategies seen at some Western companies, though rarely at this scale or with such explicit mandates. The backlash has been swift on Chinese social platforms, with many questioning whether such policies attract or repel talent.

Meta-Manus Acquisition Blocked by Chinese Regulators

China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) officially ordered Meta to cancel its acquisition of Manus, the AI agent startup that gained viral attention earlier this year. The NDRC determined the transaction required regulatory approval that was never obtained.

This marks a significant escalation in cross-border AI deal scrutiny. The decision highlights the increasingly complex regulatory environment surrounding AI acquisitions, particularly those involving Chinese AI companies and Western big tech buyers.

For Meta, the blocked deal represents a setback in its efforts to bolster its AI capabilities through acquisitions. Manus had attracted attention for its autonomous AI agent technology, which could perform complex multi-step tasks. The regulatory action underscores how AI has become a strategic national interest for China, with authorities increasingly willing to intervene in deals that could transfer key technologies abroad.

Musk Earned $0 at Tesla While OpenAI Expands Beyond Microsoft

In a detail that grabbed headlines worldwide, Elon Musk's total compensation from Tesla in 2024 was exactly $0. The figure comes amid Musk's ongoing legal battles over his previously approved compensation package worth tens of billions, which was voided by a Delaware court. Despite earning nothing from the automaker, Musk remains the world's wealthiest person through his holdings across Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI.

Meanwhile, OpenAI made a strategically significant move by ending its exclusive cloud partnership with Microsoft. OpenAI's models are now available on Amazon Web Services (AWS), opening up a massive new distribution channel.

This development matters for several reasons:

• Enterprise customers locked into AWS can now access OpenAI models without switching cloud providers
• Microsoft loses exclusivity but retains its significant investment stake and Azure integration
• AWS gains a major competitive advantage against Google Cloud in the AI model marketplace
• OpenAI diversifies its revenue streams and reduces dependence on a single partner
• Developers benefit from more deployment flexibility and potentially competitive pricing

Musk, never one to stay quiet, responded by calling OpenAI his own 'creation' and labeling current CEO Sam Altman a 'thief' — continuing the public feud that has defined much of the AI industry's narrative over the past year.

Chinese Tech Giants Restructure Around AI

Several other major developments underscored how deeply AI is reshaping corporate China. Xiaohongshu (often called China's Instagram) announced a major organizational restructuring, appointing Conan as president and establishing a first-tier AI department — elevating AI to the highest organizational priority.

Baidu issued a company-wide memo announcing a major overhaul of its employee ranking system, though specific details remain sparse. The restructuring is widely seen as an effort to flatten hierarchies and accelerate AI-driven innovation.

Tencent acquired a 24% stake in Game Science, the studio behind the blockbuster title 'Black Myth: Wukong.' While not strictly an AI story, the investment signals Tencent's belief in AI-enhanced gaming experiences.

Additionally, Chinese cyberspace regulators investigated CapCut (Jianying) and Jimeng AI for failing to properly label AI-generated content. The platforms were ordered to implement corrections, reflecting Beijing's increasingly strict stance on AI transparency and content labeling — an area where Western regulators are also tightening requirements through the EU AI Act and similar frameworks.

What This Means for the Global AI Industry

This week's developments reveal several converging trends that will shape the AI landscape through 2025 and beyond.

Talent wars are intensifying. Alibaba's bonus increases and Dreame's unconventional social media mandates represent opposite ends of the retention spectrum — one using financial incentives, the other leveraging employee labor for marketing. The contrast highlights how companies are experimenting with wildly different approaches to workforce management in the AI era.

Regulatory walls are rising. The Meta-Manus block and CapCut investigations demonstrate that governments on both sides of the Pacific are tightening control over AI companies. Cross-border AI acquisitions face unprecedented scrutiny, while content labeling requirements are becoming table stakes.

Platform dynamics are shifting. OpenAI's expansion to AWS fundamentally alters the cloud AI competitive landscape. Microsoft's loss of exclusivity could trigger a broader unbundling of AI model-cloud provider relationships.

Looking Ahead

The coming weeks will be critical for several storylines. DeepSeek's multimodal model — assuming it resurfaces — could challenge OpenAI's GPT-4o and Google's Gemini in visual reasoning capabilities. OpenAI's multi-cloud strategy will likely expand further, potentially including Google Cloud.

The Meta-Manus situation may also set precedent for future cross-border AI deals, potentially chilling acquisition activity between Western and Chinese companies. And as compensation wars heat up, expect more Chinese tech giants to announce enhanced packages aimed at preventing talent drain to AI startups.

For Western observers, this week serves as a reminder that the AI race is not just about models and benchmarks — it is equally about talent, regulation, and strategic positioning in an increasingly fragmented global market.