OpenAI’s OpenClaw hire sparks praise, memes, and rivalry chatter
Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images
- OpenAI hired the creator of OpenClaw, Peter Steinberger.
- The news made waves in the AI community.
- Some AI leaders took to X to celebrate the news, and others expressed concern.
OpenAI announced on Sunday it had hired Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw. Within hours, the news sent ripples across the AI community, drawing praise from some executives, jabs from rivals, and a flood of memes from engineers watching the talent wars unfold.
Steinberger wrote in a blog post shared on X Sunday that he was “joining OpenAI to work on bringing agents to everyone.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman amplified the news, writing that “the future is going to be extremely multi-agent.”
Peter Steinberger is joining OpenAI to drive the next generation of personal agents. He 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. We expect this will quickly become core to our…
— Sam Altman (@sama) February 15, 2026
In response to the news, several OpenAI leaders welcomed Steinberger. Thibault Sottiaux, an engineering lead on OpenAI’s Codex team, wrote that “@steipete is proof you can just build things.”
@steipete is proof you can just build things
— Tibo (@thsottiaux) February 15, 2026
Another Codex engineer posted that one of the “neat” parts of OpenAI’s culture is how many former founders work there.
One thing @steipete and I talked about over lunch last week was how many former founders are at OpenAI. It’s a really neat part of the culture.
— Andrew Ambrosino (@ajambrosino) February 16, 2026
Steinberger told Lex Friedman in a podcast last week that both Mark Zuckerberg and Altman had made him offers.
OpenClaw and its agent-only social media network Moltbook became wildly popular earlier this year as developers and AI enthusiasts shared clips of autonomous AI agents posting, replying, and interacting online. The open-source project, which demonstrates how networks of AI agents can coordinate to perform tasks across apps, also rapidly gained traction on GitHub.
After Steinberger’s announcement on Sunday, some of the people who worked on OpenClaw commented on the news.
“I know the decision was not an easy one, and I saw firsthand the pressure Peter was under, given that he understands how fundamental this could be for the AI timeline,” Jamieson O’Reilly, an OpenClaw advisor, wrote on X in a post congratulating Steinberger.
One thing has become very clear to me working together with @steipete on @openclaw.
While lots of people spectate from the sidelines, sharing their opinions, concerns and even hot takes at times, the dude is there, vigilantly on the front-lines pushing AI forward for every one… https://t.co/fe5OEKgevm
— Jamieson O’Reilly (@theonejvo) February 16, 2026
Aaron Levie, the CEO of Box, said it was a sign “2026 was the year of the agents.”
If anyone was wondering if 2026 was the year of agents, OpenAI is bringing on the maker of Openclaw. This space is about to get very real. https://t.co/ocqX4kE9PT
— Aaron Levie (@levie) February 15, 2026
Not everyone in the tech space was as enthusiastic about the news.
XAI cofounder Igor Babuschkin asked users on X: “What’s the best open alternative to OpenClaw right now? Doesn’t make sense to put all your data into it if it’s owned by OpenAI.”
PayPal mafia member Jason Calacanis expressed similar concerns.
😔 what are the chances the open source project survives / thrives after this? https://t.co/4sUZkKWkGh
— @jason (@Jason) February 15, 2026
Steinberger and OpenAI have said that OpenClaw will remain an open-source project with OpenAI’s support.
Other experts in the space pointed out that OpenAI’s win could be a loss for Anthropic, especially after Steinberger wrote on X that Anthropic sent “love letters from legal.”
“Another interesting detail is Anthropic’s visible disdain for anything open source: their only contribution to this was legal threats,” George Orosz, a tech industry analyst and author of the tech newsletter The Pragmatic Engineer, wrote on X.
Kris Puckett, a designer at Stripe, expressed a similar sentiment
Instead of @AnthropicAI getting Claudebot, they rushed legal to send a C&D and lost out on not only brilliant talent but community drive.
Truly would love to know the decision making process.
— Kris Puckett (@krispuckett) February 16, 2026
Raphael Schaad, a visiting partner at Y Combinator, said, “I bet this causes lots of VC tears.”
I bet this causes lots of VC tears and angry OSS folks. But think about this:
– Peter showed the future and lots of awesome startups are starting to bloom from this. Invest in those!
– Peter created one of the most exciting OSS projects in years. The community is vibrant and… https://t.co/RFWwfXU9Lz
— Raphael Schaad (@raphaelschaad) February 15, 2026
And finally, some X power users did what they do best: posted memes about the news.
Was expecting this one in replies pic.twitter.com/bfcZt3Ugg6
— Tibor Blaho (@btibor91) February 15, 2026