Meta acknowledges muse's design was inspired by OpenClaw, but emphasizes IT was built from scratch

Meta has acknowledged that its Muse AI product was inspired by OpenClaw, but emphasized that it was built from scratch. Nat Friedman, head of the Meta Super Intelligent Lab (MSL), stated on X that Muse was 'deeply inspired' by OpenClaw, but added that the product was developed independently. Friedman, who previously led GitHub, joined Meta last year alongside Alexandr Wang, Meta's chief AI officer. He noted that the team was drawn to OpenClaw's design and aimed to create a similar product with broader scalability. OpenClaw, an open-source project, has seen rapid growth, prompting OpenAI to recruit its developers earlier this year. The controversy arose after Ansh Nanda, co-founder of an AI application, claimed Muse was essentially a consumer-facing version of OpenClaw. Users pointed out similarities, including the use of a file named 'SOUL.md' with identical content. Friedman did not deny these claims, crediting Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw, for his innovative framework. Muse has achieved strong early traction, recently reaching the top of the US App Store's free apps chart, outperforming ChatGPT in growth metrics.