Peter Steinberger, founder of the wildly popular open-source personal intelligence agent project OpenClaw, has officially announced his joining OpenAI to lead the development of the next generation of personal intelligence agents. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman immediately confirmed the news on social media, reassuring the open-source community that OpenClaw will not be privatized but will remain open source.
It has been revealed that the talent war was exceptionally fierce. Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg personally recruited Steinberger, making multiple phone calls and spending a week deeply immersed in the product, providing frequent feedback. However, Steinberger ultimately chose OpenAI. In an earlier interview, he stated bluntly, "I have absolutely no interest in billions of dollars in funding. That path would consume all my time, lead to conflicts of interest, and ultimately harm the community." In his official announcement, he explained that he is "a builder at heart," having already experienced the startup game, and his current goal is to change the world, not to build another large company.
OpenClaw continues to be open source.
For the vast developer community, the most pressing concern is undoubtedly the fate of the star project, OpenClaw. Both sides have provided a clear solution:OpenClaw will not be privatized.Steinberger revealed that OpenClaw will transform into a...Independent FoundationThe project will continue to operate as an open, independent, and free open-source project. OpenAI has pledged ongoing support and has already begun sponsoring it. This arrangement relieves Steinberger of the financial burden of previously spending ,000-,000 per month of his own money to maintain the project, while also ensuring the community's independence and free access to the code.
From "fun" to "useful"
OpenClaw was originally named Clawdbot, then Moltbot, and finally OpenClaw. Since its launch in November 2025, the project has quickly gained over 100,000 stars on GitHub and attracted 2 million visitors within a week. Its popularity stems from its ability to allow users to invoke AI models from different vendors, giving intelligent agents complete control over computers to perform complex tasks such as processing emails and checking in.
In his blog post, Steinberger reflected on this journey: "When I first explored AI, my goal was simply to have fun and inspire others. Now, this 'crayfish' is going global." His next goal is to create "an intelligent agent that even my mother can easily use," which requires access to cutting-edge models and research, and is also his original intention for joining OpenAI.
This article is a user submission and does not represent the views of this website.
The copyright of this content belongs to the original author. Please contact the original author for authorization before reprinting. For any copyright infringement issues, please contact copyright@jaketao.com
