META Stock Rallies As Muse AI Tops App Charts — Exec Admits It’s ‘Heavily Inspired’ By OpenClaw

Meta’s new AI agent sparks a broader debate over agentic AI, platform access and the future of app-based services.

• Muse crossed 900,000 downloads in its first six days, surpassing Meta AI's early adoption.
• Amazon has restricted Muse’s access to its store, citing unauthorized access and security concerns.
• Shopify has partnered with Meta to enable shopping and checkout through Muse.

The early success of Meta Platforms Inc.’s Muse AI has drawn both praise and criticism, with some users claiming the social media giant’s agentic AI tool eerily resembles OpenClaw, which went viral in China and elsewhere earlier this year.

Meta is also facing off with Amazon, which has blocked Muse from accessing its online store. Interestingly, the social media giant is meanwhile promoting Muse’s integration with Shopify.

Launched on Sept. 8, Muse reached the No. 1 spot on free app store rankings across both Apple’s iOS App Store and Google Play in the U.S. as of Monday. The application registered more than 902,000 downloads in its first six days, outpacing the initial launch numbers of its predecessor, the Meta AI app.

META stock surged 11.4% on Monday, its best single-day gain since April, and was edging marginally higher in overnight trading.

Some Users Say Muse Is OpenClaw Clone 

After a user on X pointed out the similarities, Meta’s head of product for Meta Super Intelligence Labs, Nat Friedman, said the tool is "inspired” by OpenClaw.

“We built muse from scratch, but it is definitely heavily inspired as a product by openclaw. After I used openclaw in january I bought hundreds of mac minis for the MSL team and lots of us fell in love with using openclaw (and other personal agents),” Friedman said in an X post on Monday.

“I think a lot of people were inspired by it. our goal with muse was to build something like openclaw that we could make safe and secure and easy to use and scale to billions of people.”

In another instance, a user said Muse’s coding libraries appeared to have the same names as OpenClaw, to which Friedman responded, “You got a problem with that?”

OpenClaw became a viral sensation in China, where users call it "raising a lobster" because of its crustacean logo. Major Chinese tech giants like Tencent, Baidu, and Alibaba quickly integrated, adapted, and released pre-built cloud versions of the agent for domestic platforms like WeChat. 

Amazon Blocks Muse

Amazon is reportedly showing a pop-up message for Muse users saying that “continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon’s Conditions of Use, to which our customers have agreed.”

According to GeekWire, Meta didn’t notify Amazon that Muse would access its store. Amazon also raised privacy and security concerns over Muse failing to identify itself while browsing and seemingly capturing customer credentials.

Meanwhile, Meta says Muse can do shopping via Shopify. In fact, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who reserves his X posts for only the most important messages, wrote about the partnership in a post.

“Teaming up with Shopify to make shopping and checkout easier in Muse. Shoppers find more. Shops sell more. More partnerships like this coming soon,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora said Amazon’s move to block Muse could be the start of a “bigger battle than anyone anticipates,” arguing that more platforms will eventually have to decide whether to open their APIs to consumer AI agents. 

He said users are unlikely to want “an agent for each app” and instead will prefer a single agent that can handle tasks across services, while warning that commoditized businesses such as insurance, hotels and ticketing could face disruption if they fail to adapt. 

Retail View On META

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment for META climbed sharply and was ‘bullish’ as of late Monday, with discussions heavily focusing on the Muse rollout and stock surge.

“$META Muse is an absolute game changer folks! Enjoy the ride,” said a trader.

Some also saw Monday’s rally as a selling opportunity. “$META anyone use muse lately and i dont understand the hype. Nothing breakthrough. People claiming this as iphone moment.. i dont see it. I own meta shares but wish i sold all of it today before close,” said a trader.

META stock has risen nearly 30% so far in September, taking the year-to-date gains to 12.6%.

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