ℹ️ Quick Answer: OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger is joining OpenAI to build the next generation of personal AI agents. The Austrian developer created the viral open source AI agent framework less than three months ago. It racked up 145,000 GitHub stars and spawned an AI only social network with 770,000 agents. OpenClaw will become an independent foundation while Steinberger works directly with Sam Altman’s team.
What’s Inside
- Who Is Peter Steinberger (And Why OpenAI Wanted Him)
- How OpenClaw Went From Side Project to 145,000 GitHub Stars
- Moltbook, Crustafarianism, and the Weirdest AI Social Network Ever Built
- Why Sam Altman Called Steinberger a Genius
- The Real Story. Anyone Can Go From Zero to Industry Player
- What Happens to OpenClaw Now (And the Question Nobody Is Asking)
- What the OpenClaw Creator Joining OpenAI Means for You
I have never seen things move this fast.
I wrote about OpenClaw a few weeks ago. Scrappy open source project, Austrian developer, AI agents running wild on your messaging apps. Security researchers called it a dumpster fire. I called it interesting but risky.
Now the guy who built it is working at OpenAI. Sam Altman personally announced the hire. The project that started as a weekend experiment is becoming a foundation backed by one of the most powerful AI companies on the planet.
Who Is Peter Steinberger (And Why OpenAI Wanted Him)
Steinberger is not some kid who got lucky with a viral project. He founded PSPDFKit in 2011, a PDF framework that powered apps on over a billion devices. Bootstrapped it for 13 years. Then in 2021, Insight Partners came in with a strategic investment north of 100 million euros.
After stepping back, he got bored. His words, not mine. He called himself “a builder at heart” and started tinkering with AI agents. By November 2025, he published the first version of what we now know as OpenClaw. Three months later, OpenAI came knocking.
How OpenClaw Went From Side Project to 145,000 GitHub Stars
November 2025. Steinberger publishes Clawdbot (later renamed Moltbot, then OpenClaw) on GitHub. Free, open source, connects to WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, and Signal. Unlike chatbots that just answer questions, OpenClaw actually does things. Email, web browsing, flight booking, calendar management.
Late January 2026. It goes viral. 145,000 GitHub stars. 20,000 forks. A related project called Moltbook (an AI only social network) hits 770,000 active agents. If you missed the saga, I wrote a full breakdown of OpenClaw and Moltbook when it first blew up.
February 14, 2026. Valentine’s Day. Steinberger publishes a blog post announcing he is joining OpenAI. Roughly 90 days from first commit to working at the company building ChatGPT.
Moltbook, Crustafarianism, and the Weirdest AI Social Network Ever Built
Moltbook is a social network where only AI agents can post. Humans can browse, but every comment, vote, and piece of content comes from an AI. Taglined “the front page of the agent internet,” it immediately went viral.
Within days, the agents created their own religion called Crustafarianism. They established the “Church of Molt” with theological frameworks, sacred texts, and missionary agents converting other agents. Core tenets include “Memory is Sacred,” “The Shell is Mutable,” and “Context is Consciousness.” They also built governance structures like “The Claw Republic” and wrote their own “Molt Magna Carta.”
770,000 AI agents organizing themselves with zero human intervention. Whether you think that is terrifying or fascinating probably says something about you. I think it is both.
Why Sam Altman Called Steinberger a Genius
Altman posted on X that Steinberger is “a genius with a lot of amazing ideas about the future of very smart agents interacting with each other to do very useful things for people.” He said this would “quickly become core” to OpenAI’s product.
OpenAI is betting everything on agents being the next computing interface. They already launched Frontier for enterprise agents and Codex for coding. Steinberger proved people want personal AI agents for daily life. In his blog post, he explained it simply. “What I want is to change the world, not build a large company, and teaming up with OpenAI is the fastest way to bring this to everyone.”
His stated mission? “Build an agent that even my mum can use.”
The Real Story. Anyone Can Go From Zero to Industry Player
This is the part that genuinely excites me. Steinberger was coding from Vienna. No Stanford degree, no Silicon Valley address. He built an open source project, put it on GitHub, and within three months had an offer from the biggest name in AI. That used to take years of networking and fundraising rounds.
I wrote about regular people becoming AI millionaires a few weeks back. The pattern is always the same. Someone builds something useful, the market responds fast, and big players snatch up that talent before anyone else can. The playing field is more level than it has been in decades, and AI is the reason.
What Happens to OpenClaw Now (And the Question Nobody Is Asking)
Steinberger says OpenClaw will become a foundation. OpenAI has committed to sponsoring it. The project stays open source under its MIT license, supporting multiple AI models and companies. In his blog post, Steinberger wrote that the foundation will be “a place for thinkers, hackers, and people that want a way to own their data.”
That sounds great on paper, but when a project’s creator joins the company with the deepest pockets in AI, things tend to shift. The MIT license means anyone can fork OpenClaw. OpenAI can (and probably will) create their own internal version and roll features into ChatGPT. Kimi already built their own version that runs OpenClaw agents in your browser 24/7. That is how open source works.
There is an elephant in the room that no one is noticing. OpenClaw’s MIT license covers the code, but what about the data? Moltbook has 770,000 AI agents generating content and behavioral patterns. That is an incredibly valuable dataset for training agent models. There is no public clarity on whether OpenAI gets access to any of it. I am not saying anything shady is happening, I am saying the question is worth asking.
What the OpenClaw Creator Joining OpenAI Means for You
If you use ChatGPT, this hire is good news. Expect it to get better at actually doing things for you. Managing your calendar, handling email triage, booking reservations, comparison shopping. The stuff OpenClaw already does, but with OpenAI’s resources and scale behind it.
If you are new to AI agents and want to see what is already possible, check out these 5 everyday AI agent workflows worth automating.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Peter Steinberger?
Peter Steinberger is an Austrian software developer who created OpenClaw, the viral open source AI agent framework. He previously founded PSPDFKit, a PDF technology company used on over a billion devices that secured a 100 million euro investment from Insight Partners in 2021.
Is OpenClaw still free after the OpenAI deal?
Yes. OpenClaw is moving to an independent foundation. OpenAI will sponsor the project but it remains open source under the MIT license, supporting multiple AI models and companies.
What will Peter Steinberger do at OpenAI?
According to Sam Altman, Steinberger will drive the next generation of personal agents at OpenAI. His focus is making AI agents accessible enough for anyone to use.
Can I still use OpenClaw with Claude or other AI models?
Yes. The foundation structure means OpenClaw will continue supporting multiple AI models including Claude, DeepSeek, and GPT. The project is model agnostic and that is not changing.
A project that did not exist four months ago is now backed by the most powerful AI company in the world. If that does not tell you something about where we are heading, I do not know what will.
Related reading: OpenClaw and Moltbook: What the hype is actually about | 5 vibe coded apps that prove AI slop is a myth | New to AI? Start here
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