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Peter Steinberger, the developer behind the open-source AI agent framework OpenClaw, is moving to OpenAI after what he describes as a whirlwind month of inbound interest and investment offers. OpenClaw itself will transition into a foundation structure, meant to keep it vendor-neutral and open even as its creator works inside one of the largest AI labs. Steinberger frames the decision as access – to researchers, unreleased models, and the infrastructure to scale agent tooling beyond hobbyist circles. The acqui-hire-adjacent pattern here is familiar: small open-source projects gaining traction, then their leads getting absorbed by the companies best positioned to operationalize the work. Whether foundation governance actually preserves independence once the core maintainer sits inside OpenAI remains the real question.
