OpenClaw Founder Joins OpenAI, Highlighting Anthropic’s Biggest Strategic Misstep

Peter Steinberger, the founder of the open‑source AI agent project OpenClaw, announced his official joining of OpenAI, a move welcomed by Sam Altman who praised Steinberger’s vision for the future of agents.

OpenClaw, originally named Clawbot and built on Anthropic’s Claude model, quickly amassed over 18,000 GitHub stars, becoming one of the fastest‑growing open‑source projects in history.

Instead of collaborating, Anthropic responded with legal letters demanding a rename over trademark concerns, a decision that many developers consider the company’s biggest strategic misstep in recent years.

Developer Nader Dabit called the episode “the fumble of the decade,” arguing that the project represented an ideal ecosystem story that Anthropic squandered by issuing the legal threat.

In his blog, Steinberger explained that his goal is to build an agent “that even my mother could use,” which requires major safety considerations, access to cutting‑edge models, and a platform capable of supporting such ambition. After meetings with several labs in San Francisco, he concluded that OpenAI offers the best environment and has pledged to sponsor OpenClaw.

Both Steinberger and Altman affirmed that OpenClaw will remain open source, will be transferred to an independent foundation, and will retain independence to support multiple models and companies, not just OpenAI. Altman added that the future will be an era of “extremely multi‑agent” systems, and open‑source support is a key part of that vision.

OpenClaw will continue to be open source.

It will be moved to an independent foundation.

It will stay independent, aiming to support many models and companies.