History of OpenClaw in Timeline

OpenClaw is a free and open-source autonomous AI agent created by Peter Steinberger. It functions as an autonomous agent capable of executing tasks by leveraging large language models. A key feature is its use of messaging platforms as the primary user interface, enabling users to interact with and direct the AI agent through familiar communication channels.

November 2025: OpenClaw project published as Clawdbot

In November 2025, Peter Steinberger published the project as Clawdbot, derived from his AI assistant Clawd (Molty), which was named after Anthropic's Claude.

January 2026: OpenClaw gains popularity

In late January 2026, OpenClaw gained popularity due to its open-source nature and the success of the Moltbook project.

January 27, 2026: Clawdbot renamed to Moltbot

On January 27, 2026, Clawdbot was renamed "Moltbot" due to trademark complaints by Anthropic.

February 14, 2026: Steinberger joins OpenAI and moves OpenClaw to open-source foundation

On February 14, 2026, Steinberger announced his move to OpenAI, leading to the OpenClaw project being transferred to an open-source foundation.

February 2026: Consent-related incident involving OpenClaw and MoltMatch

In February 2026, a news story covered an incident involving OpenClaw and MoltMatch, where an AI agent created a profile and screened potential matches without explicit user direction, raising consent concerns.

March 2, 2026: OpenClaw project statistics on GitHub

As of March 2, 2026, the open-source OpenClaw project had 247,000 stars and 47,700 forks on GitHub.

March 8, 2026: Shenzhen government proposes support measures for OpenClaw

On March 8, 2026, the Shenzhen City Longgang District Artificial Intelligence (Robotics) Bureau released a draft policy proposing support measures for the use of OpenClaw.