--- title: Meta admits Muse’s likeness to OpenClaw isn’t a coincidence description: Meta's Nat Friedman has confirmed that its new AI assistant Muse was 'heavily inspired' by the open source project OpenClaw, after users noticed near-identical... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/meta-admits-muse-s-likeness-to-openclaw-isn-t-a-coincidence-krbqjeh57 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Meta admits Muse’s likeness to OpenClaw isn’t a coincidence | daily.dev og:description: Meta's Nat Friedman has confirmed that its new AI assistant Muse was 'heavily inspired' by the open source project OpenClaw, after users noticed near-identical... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/meta-admits-muse-s-likeness-to-openclaw-isn-t-a-coincidence-krbqjeh57 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/kRbQJEH57.png og:image:alt: Meta admits Muse’s likeness to OpenClaw isn’t a coincidence og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Meta admits Muse’s likeness to OpenClaw isn’t a coincidence **[TechCrunch](https://daily.dev/sources/tc)** · 3 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Meta's Nat Friedman has confirmed that its new AI assistant Muse was 'heavily inspired' by the open source project OpenClaw, after users noticed near-identical workspace filenames and content, including a SOUL.md personality configuration file. Friedman insists Muse was built from scratch but praised OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger's design as 'pioneering,' saying the team wanted to scale a similar experience to billions of users. The admission follows viral social media threads comparing the two products' internal files. Muse has since hit No. 1 on the U.S. App Store, reportedly outpacing ChatGPT's early mobile launch. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Did Meta copy OpenClaw when building its Muse AI assistant? Meta's Nat Friedman, head of product at Meta Superintelligence Labs, confirmed Muse was 'heavily inspired' by OpenClaw, though he says it was built from scratch. Users found Muse's workspace contained nearly identical filenames and content to OpenClaw's, including a SOUL.md personality configuration file. Friedman praised OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger's design as pioneering rather than disputing the similarities. _daily.dev surfaces stories like this for developers tracking how major labs build on open source agent projects._ --- Tags: [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#openclaw](https://daily.dev/tags/openclaw) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/meta-admits-muse-s-likeness-to-openclaw-isn-t-a-coincidence-krbqjeh57) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Meta admits Muse’s likeness to OpenClaw isn’t a coincidence","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/meta-admits-muse-s-likeness-to-openclaw-isn-t-a-coincidence-krbqjeh57","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/meta-admits-muse-s-likeness-to-openclaw-isn-t-a-coincidence-krbqjeh57"},"datePublished":"2026-09-22T19:13:38.308Z","dateModified":"2026-09-22T19:14:01.491Z","description":"Meta's Nat Friedman has confirmed that its new AI assistant Muse was 'heavily inspired' by the open source project OpenClaw, after users noticed near-identical...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/ff585eae853566e7e694b0a69987d9a6?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/ff585eae853566e7e694b0a69987d9a6?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"TechCrunch","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TechCrunch","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/tc","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/meta-admits-muse-s-likeness-to-openclaw-isn-t-a-coincidence-krbqjeh57","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"ai-agents,openclaw","timeRequired":"PT3M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"TechCrunch","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Meta admits Muse’s likeness to OpenClaw isn’t a coincidence"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/meta-admits-muse-s-likeness-to-openclaw-isn-t-a-coincidence-krbqjeh57#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Did Meta copy OpenClaw when building its Muse AI assistant?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Meta's Nat Friedman, head of product at Meta Superintelligence Labs, confirmed Muse was 'heavily inspired' by OpenClaw, though he says it was built from scratch. Users found Muse's workspace contained nearly identical filenames and content to OpenClaw's, including a SOUL.md personality configuration file. Friedman praised OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger's design as pioneering rather than disputing the similarities. daily.dev surfaces stories like this for developers tracking how major labs build on open source agent projects."}}]} ```