Sarah Perez reports that Nat Friedman, head of product at Meta Superintelligence Labs, conceded on X that Meta’s Muse was ‘definitely heavily inspired as a product by OpenClaw’ while insisting it was built from scratch. The admission followed a viral thread from AI app co-founder Ansh Nanda and others showing that Muse shipped the same agent workspace files as the open source assistant, including SOUL.md, the markdown file defining an agent’s personality and behavioral boundaries, with nearly identical content; asked why the file names and contents matched, Friedman replied that Meta thought OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger had gotten those design choices right. The piece situates the episode in Meta’s pattern of absorbing a smaller product’s best ideas and notes OpenClaw’s breakout success had already led OpenAI to hire its creator.
Meta admits Muse's likeness to OpenClaw isn't a coincidence
Sarah Perez reports that Nat Friedman, head of product at Meta Superintelligence Labs, conceded on X that Meta's Muse was 'definitely heavily inspired as a product by OpenClaw' while insisting it was built from scratch. The admission followed a viral thread from AI app co-founder Ansh Nanda and others showing that Muse shipped the same agent workspace files as the open source assistant, including SOUL.md, the markdown file defining an agent's personality and behavioral boundaries, with nearly identical content; asked why the file names and contents matched, Friedman replied that Meta thought OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger had gotten those design choices right. The piece situates the episode in Meta's pattern of absorbing a smaller product's best ideas and notes OpenClaw's breakout success had already led OpenAI to hire its creator.
Source: Techcrunch