Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta acquires AI agent social network Moltbook that rival Sam Altman made ‘fun of’ by saying …
Facebook parent Meta has reportedly acquired Moltbook. Moltbook is the social networking site for AI agents, a platform that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman previously joked about. While acquiring the OpenClaw AI agent last month, Altman played down Moltbook but said the underlying technology offered a glimpse of what we will experience in the coming days: “Moltbook may be (is a passing fad), but OpenClaw is not,” Altman said. In February, OpenAI hired Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw, an open-source bot previously known as Clawdbot or Moltbot, to support the project’s open-source development. According to a report by Axios, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has now announced that it is acquiring Moltbook and the company will hire the founders of the AI agent social media platform into its AI research division. This comes as growing competition among technology companies to acquire AI talent and technology, as autonomous agents capable of carrying out real-world tasks move from experimental tools toward broader industry use.
What the Meta deal means for Moltbook founders
The Axios report noted that the Meta deal will bring the Moltbook co-founders, Matt Schlicht and Ben Parr, to Meta Superintelligence Labs, a unit led by former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang. The report claims that Schlicht and Parr may join Meta Superintelligence Labs on March 16. However, Meta has not disclosed the financial terms of the deal.Moltbook, a Reddit-style platform where AI-powered bots appear to exchange code and discuss their human creators, began as a small experiment in late January. It has since drawn attention as discussions grow around how close computers may be to demonstrating human-like intelligence.However, Mike Krieger, chief product officer at Anthropic, said many people remain hesitant to grant AI systems full autonomy over their computers, fearing potential risks such as security vulnerabilities and loss of control over personal data.Schlicht has promoted the concept of “vibe coding,” which involves building programs with AI assistance. He said he “didn’t write one line of code” for the site. Schlicht developed Moltbook largely with the help of his personal AI assistant, Clawd Clawderberg.However, Moltbook’s rapid growth also revealed some dangers. Cybersecurity company Wiz stated that Moltbook’s strategy would leave a gap through which hackers could gain access and steal personal messages, over 6,000 email addresses, and more than a million credentials. However, later Wiz noted that the issue was fixed after they informed Moltbook.
