Meta admits its hit AI app Muse was modeled on OpenClaw

Meta ↘ 0.63% has acknowledged that its hit AI app Muse draws heavily from the open-source project OpenClaw, after users discovered striking similarities between the two products' underlying file structures and configurations.

"Heavily Inspired"

Nat Friedman, head of product at Meta's Superintelligence Labs and former GitHub CEO, confirmed on X on Tuesday that Muse was "definitely heavily inspired as a product by OpenClaw," though he maintained the app was "built from scratch." The admission came after a viral post by AI app co-founder Ansh Nanda, who claimed "Muse is LITERALLY OpenClaw for normies" and shared a conversation with Muse in which the AI agent said the similarity between its system files and OpenClaw's was "a match," not "a coincidence."techcrunch+1

Users quickly piled on with their own findings. Several pointed out that Muse uses a SOUL.md file — the plain text configuration file that defines an AI agent's personality, behavioral boundaries, and communication style — with nearly identical content to OpenClaw's version. When pressed on why Muse had copied exact filenames and file content, Friedman did not dispute the claims. He replied that "we thought that Peter [Steinberger, OpenClaw's creator] got those things exactly right."techcrunch

A Familiar Playbook

Friedman explained that after using OpenClaw in January, he purchased hundreds of Mac minis for the MSL team, and "lots of us fell in love" with the tool. He called Steinberger "a genius" whose work was "pioneering from the jump," adding that Meta's goal was to build "something like OpenClaw that we could make safe and secure and easy to use and scale to billions of people."techcrunch

The pattern is a well-worn one for Meta, which has a history of replicating successful products — most notoriously adapting Snapchat's Stories format across its platforms. A Meta spokesperson declined to comment beyond Friedman's statements.techcrunch

Muse's Rise

OpenClaw's breakout success earlier this year prompted OpenAI to acquire its creator, underscoring the project's influence on the broader AI landscape. Muse, meanwhile, has climbed to No. 1 on the U.S. App Store and is reportedly outpacing ChatGPT's launch trajectory when compared on equivalent platforms and market availability.techcrunch