Who Made OpenClaw? The Story of Peter Steinberger and the AI Agent That Took Over GitHub

Who Created OpenClaw?

OpenClaw was created by Peter Steinberger, an Austrian software developer and entrepreneur. He built it as a personal playground project in late 2025 — a side experiment to see what would happen if you gave an AI model persistent memory, tool access, and the ability to communicate through messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram.

What started as a weekend hack became the fastest-growing open-source AI agent framework in history, hitting 100,000 GitHub stars in roughly three months.

Who Is Peter Steinberger?

Peter Steinberger is an Austrian software developer best known for founding PSPDFKit, a PDF framework used by companies like Autodesk, Dropbox, and SAP. He ran PSPDFKit for 13 years before stepping away. His background is in iOS and macOS development, with deep expertise in frameworks, tooling, and developer experience.

Before OpenClaw, Steinberger was already well-known in the Apple developer community. He's spoken at conferences like WWDC, NSConference, and UIKonf, and has been a prolific open-source contributor for over a decade.

In his own words, he wanted OpenClaw to be something where he could "have fun and inspire people." He didn't set out to build a company — he set out to build something interesting.

How Did OpenClaw Start?

OpenClaw began in November 2025 as a project called "WhatsApp Relay" — a simple experiment to connect an AI model to WhatsApp so Steinberger could text it from his phone. The idea was straightforward: instead of opening a browser tab to talk to Claude or ChatGPT, what if you could just message your AI from WhatsApp like you'd message a friend?

The first version was rough. It could receive messages, send them to Claude's API, and relay the response back. No memory, no tools, no scheduling — just a message relay.

But Steinberger kept adding features. Persistent memory. Tool calling. Calendar access. File management. Scheduled tasks. Each addition made it more useful, and each improvement attracted more developers on GitHub.

Within weeks, the project had gone from a personal tool to a framework that other developers were forking, extending, and deploying on their own servers.

Why Did It Change Names Three Times?

OpenClaw went through three name changes in its first three months, reflecting how fast the project evolved:

• ClawdBot (November 2025) — The original name, a play on "Claude" and "bot." This was the WhatsApp relay phase.
• MoltBot (late January 2026) — As the project grew beyond a simple bot into a full agent framework, Steinberger renamed it. "Molt" referenced the lobster mascot shedding its shell — growing into something bigger.
• OpenClaw (January 30, 2026) — The final name, emphasizing the open-source nature and the lobster claw mascot. This name stuck.

If you see references to ClawdBot or MoltBot online, they're the same project. All three names refer to the same software.

How Did OpenClaw Grow So Fast?

OpenClaw hit 100,000 GitHub stars by February 2026 — one of the fastest growth curves in GitHub history. Several factors drove this:

• Timing: The AI agent space was exploding. People wanted alternatives to browser-based AI that could actually take actions, not just chat.
• Practical utility: OpenClaw solved a real problem — having an AI assistant accessible from your phone that runs 24/7 and can do things for you.
• Self-hosted: In an era of data privacy concerns, a self-hosted AI agent that keeps your data on your own hardware resonated strongly.
• Community: Steinberger's existing developer reputation and the project's welcoming contribution culture attracted a large community fast.
• The lobster: The distinctive lobster mascot gave the project a memorable visual identity that spread across social media.

Why Did Peter Steinberger Join OpenAI?

In February 2026, Steinberger announced he was joining OpenAI. In his blog post, he explained that while he "could totally see how OpenClaw could become a huge company," he'd already played the startup game for 13 years with PSPDFKit and didn't want to repeat it.

His goal was to build "an agent that even my mum can use" — and he believed joining OpenAI was "the fastest way to bring this to everyone." He recognized that making AI agents safe and accessible at scale required "broader change, a lot more thought on how to do it safely, and access to the very latest models and research."

What Happened to OpenClaw After He Left?

OpenClaw transitioned to a foundation model. Steinberger ensured the project would remain "open and independent" — not owned by any company, including OpenAI. OpenAI committed sponsorship to support the project's continued development.

The foundation model means OpenClaw is governed by the community. Contributors, maintainers, and users collectively guide the project's direction. The code remains open source under its existing license.

As Steinberger put it: the foundation is for "thinkers, hackers and people" who want to "own their data" while supporting "even more models and companies."

Where Is OpenClaw Today?

As of March 2026, OpenClaw is one of the most actively developed open-source AI projects in the world. It supports 50+ integrations including WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, and enterprise platforms like Microsoft Teams. It works with every major AI model provider — Anthropic (Claude), OpenAI (GPT), Google (Gemini), and local models via Ollama.

The ecosystem has grown to include ClawHub (a public skills registry with 13,000+ community-built skills), multiple managed hosting providers, and a thriving community of operators running OpenClaw in production for business workflows.

Remote OpenClaw is a managed hosting service that deploys, secures, and maintains production OpenClaw systems for founders and small teams. If you want to skip the DIY setup and have a production-ready agent running the same day, book a free strategy call.

OpenClaw Timeline: Key Dates