Nat Friedman, head of product at Meta Superintelligence Labs, acknowledged on 22 September that Muse was “definitely heavily inspired as a product by OpenClaw”, TechCrunch reported. The admission followed users’ comparisons of Muse’s workspace files with those of the open-source agent, including a SOUL.md file they said was nearly identical in content.
Key points
- Friedman says Muse was built from scratch, while acknowledging OpenClaw’s influence on the product.
- Users compared the agents’ workspace filenames and said their SOUL.md files had nearly identical content.
- Friedman says he bought hundreds of Mac minis for Meta’s team after trying OpenClaw in January.
Users compare Muse’s SOUL.md with OpenClaw
SOUL.md is a plain-text Markdown file used to set an agent’s personality, communication style and behavioural boundaries. Users found a file with that name in Muse’s workspace, alongside filenames also used by OpenClaw. One user said the SOUL.md content was almost entirely the same in the two agents.
Ansh Nanda, an AI app co-founder, described Muse as “LITERALLY OpenClaw for normies” in a post that included a conversation with the agent, TechCrunch reported. Asked to compare its system files with OpenClaw’s repository, Muse called the similarity “a match” rather than “a coincidence”. Those words were the agent’s response to Nanda’s question.
Friedman was subsequently asked about the matching filenames and the reported similarity of the SOUL.md files. “We thought that Peter got those things exactly right,” he replied, referring to Peter Steinberger, OpenClaw’s creator. His answer addressed why the workspace choices carried over into Muse.
Friedman bought Mac minis after trying OpenClaw
Friedman says he first used OpenClaw in January, then bought hundreds of Mac minis for the Meta Superintelligence Labs team. “Lots of us fell in love with using OpenClaw,” he wrote. The team used other personal agents too, according to his account.
He also says Muse was “built from scratch”. That is Meta’s account of how the agent was made, alongside Friedman’s acknowledgement of OpenClaw’s influence on its product design and his defence of the matching workspace choices.
Friedman called Steinberger “a genius” and said his agent harness “was pioneering from the jump”. He described Meta’s goal as making something like OpenClaw that it could make safe, secure and easy to use at a scale of billions of people. OpenClaw is open source, and Steinberger joined OpenAI earlier in 2026.
Muse reaches the US App Store’s top spot
Muse launched on 8 September and is available in the US as a standalone app and through WhatsApp, The Decoder reported. The app is designed to handle tasks including research, booking trips and sorting out scheduling conflicts.
Muse reached No. 1 on the US App Store, The Decoder reported. Meta’s shares rose 11% on 21 September amid the app’s reception, Quartz reported.
A Meta spokesperson directed TechCrunch to Friedman’s post when asked for comment and said the company had nothing further to add, TechCrunch reported.
