Meta Acknowledges OpenClaw Inspired Its New AI Agent Muse

Meta has acknowledged that its new AI tool, Muse, was heavily inspired by the open-source project OpenClaw. Responding to speculation on social media, Nat Friedman, head of product at Meta’s Superintelligence Labs (MSL) and former GitHub CEO, stated on X that while the team was inspired by OpenClaw's design to build a solution scalable to billions of users, Muse was "built from scratch." The admission followed a viral post by AI app co-founder Ansh Nanda, who noted structural similarities between the two systems. Online users pointed out that Muse shares system file naming and formats with OpenClaw, including the use of a "SOUL.md" Markdown file—a plain text configuration file used to dictate an AI agent's personality, communication style, tone, values, and behavioral boundaries.