Meta admits Muse’s likeness to OpenClaw isn’t a coincidence
Meta acknowledges that its new AI assistant Muse draws heavily from the open-source project OpenClaw, though the company says Muse was built from scratch. Nat Friedman, head of product at Meta’s Superintelligence Labs, said Muse was inspired by OpenClaw’s design and tooling after his team adopted it internally.
Why It Matters
The admission highlights how major tech firms can incorporate ideas and conventions from open-source projects when developing large-scale consumer products, raising questions about influence, credit, and reuse as AI agents are commercialized. It also spotlights the rapid consumer adoption of Muse, which has already reached the top of the U.S. App Store.
Key Facts
- Meta product: Muse AI assistant
- Acknowledging executive: Nat Friedman, head of product at Meta’s Superintelligence Labs (MSL)
- Friedman’s platform: X (formerly Twitter) post
- Friedman’s claim: Muse was "definitely heavily inspired as a product by OpenClaw" but "built from scratch"
- OpenClaw status: Open-source project; its creator Peter Steinberger was later hired by OpenAI earlier this year (per source)
Meta confirmed that its Muse AI assistant took substantial inspiration from the open-source project OpenClaw, while maintaining that Muse’s codebase was created independently. In a post on X, Nat Friedman, who leads product at Meta’s Superintelligence Labs, said his team “fell in love with OpenClaw” after using it and aimed to build something similar that could be scaled for billions of users. Friedman addressed specific comparisons that circulated online showing identical workspace filenames and near-identical content in configuration files, such as a SOUL.md file that defines an agent’s persona and behaviors. Rather than disputing those parallels, Friedman said the team felt OpenClaw’s choices were “exactly right” and credited OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger as a pioneering force. The public debate intensified after an X thread from Ansh Nanda included a Muse conversation in which the assistant conceded that the similarity of system files to OpenClaw was not a coincidence. Other users shared side-by-side comparisons noting matching filenames and closely matching file contents. Friedman said Meta’s aim was to take the concept and make it safe, secure, easy to use and scalable. Muse has seen strong consumer uptake since its release, reaching No. 1 on the U.S. App Store and, according to data cited in the reporting, outpacing ChatGPT’s launch when comparing platforms and market availability. A Meta spokesperson declined further comment beyond pointing to Friedman’s statements. The reporting on this story appeared in TechCrunch; the article’s author is Sarah Perez.
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