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Meta admits Muse’s likeness to OpenClaw isn’t a coincidence

2 h ago

Meta’s Muse AI assistant is confirmed to be “heavily inspired” by the open-source OpenClaw, though built from scratch, according to Nat Friedman, head of product at Meta’s Superintelligence Labs (MSL). In an X post, Friedman acknowledged that the team fell in love with OpenClaw and aimed to create a scaled, safe version for billions of users. The admission came after viral speculation that Muse was essentially “OpenClaw for normies,” with users pointing out identical file names and nearly identical content in the SOUL.md configuration file that defines an AI agent’s personality. Friedman did not dispute these findings, instead praising OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger for getting those details “exactly right.” He added that after using OpenClaw in January, he bought hundreds of Mac minis for the MSL team. Muse has become a hit, recently reaching No. 1 on the U.S. App Store and reportedly outpacing ChatGPT’s launch trajectory when adjusted for platform and market availability. A Meta spokesperson directed further comment to Friedman’s statement. The development highlights Meta’s known strategy of taking promising products and copying their best features, as seen previously with Snapchat’s stories format. For readers tracking AI assistant competition, open-source inspiration, and Meta’s product evolution, this confirms that Muse’s strong performance stems directly from OpenClaw’s pioneering design, while Meta adds safety, ease-of-use, and massive scalability.