Who Is Peter Steinberger, the Creator of OpenClaw?

Peter Steinberger is the creator of OpenClaw, and he joined OpenAI in February 2026 to work on personal agents.

At Layer3Labs, we build AI agents for business workflows, so we evaluate how open-source runtimes function in real operations.

Before OpenClaw, Steinberger created PSPDFKit, a PDF framework that TechCrunch said in 2021 was used in apps reaching nearly 1 billion people.

Where Peter Steinberger Is Now

Peter Steinberger works at OpenAI on personal artificial intelligence (AI) agents. Sam Altman of OpenAI announced Steinberger's arrival in mid-February 2026, stating that he joined to drive the development of personal agents. Altman said OpenClaw would live in a foundation as an open-source project, supported by OpenAI.

Reporting from SiliconANGLE and Reuters placed the announcement on February 15, 2026. Other sources cite nearby dates, with Wikipedia listing February 14, 2026, while Euronews and The Decoder dated their reporting to February 16, 2026. Neither OpenAI nor Steinberger has published a formal corporate title beyond his engineering work on agent systems.

• Current role: Works on personal agents at OpenAI (no official job title published).
• Organization: OpenAI.
• Known for: Creating OpenClaw and founding PSPDFKit.
• Education: Studied at the Vienna University of Technology, per Wikipedia.
• Recent milestone: Joined OpenAI in mid-February 2026 to build personal AI assistants.

Early Career and Document Processing at PSPDFKit

In Vienna, Steinberger created the initial framework for PSPDFKit, a software toolkit designed to handle document processing and Portable Document Format (PDF) rendering across mobile and web applications. Martin Schürrer and Jonathan Rhyne later joined as co-founders, with Rhyne arriving in 2014.

Historical accounts differ regarding the exact year PSPDFKit began. Wikipedia states that Steinberger founded PSPDFKit in 2010, while a 2021 report in TechCrunch stated the company started around 2011.

In October 2021, PSPDFKit raised €100 million ($116 million) from Insight Partners in PSPDFKit's first round of outside financing, as reported by TechCrunch. TechCrunch reported that software applications powered by PSPDFKit reached nearly 1 billion users across roughly 150 countries. Following the investment, Steinberger stepped down from full-time operational management while remaining "significantly invested" in the business.

Creation and Evolution of OpenClaw

Steinberger published the first public version of his autonomous agent project on November 24, 2025 under the name Warelay, according to Wikipedia. The software evolved from Clawd, an earlier assistant Steinberger built and named after the Claude language model developed by Anthropic. Clawd was later renamed Molty. SiliconANGLE, Reuters and Wikipedia's article on Steinberger give the project's original name as Clawdbot instead, and all agree it was then renamed Moltbot and then OpenClaw.

Anthropic's trademark complaints led to two renames in early 2026. Steinberger changed the name to Moltbot on January 27, 2026 following "trademark complaints by Anthropic," and three days later selected the name OpenClaw. Reuters described OpenClaw as an assistant that handles emails, insurance claims and flight check-ins.

Reuters also reported that OpenClaw attracted more than 100,000 GitHub stars and 2 million visitors within a single week. By March 2, 2026, the GitHub repository recorded 247,000 stars and 47,700 forks per Wikipedia, and the project released OpenClaw 2.0 on August 30, 2026. Teams evaluating agent execution can read our technical breakdown of OpenClaw architecture and see how it compares against competing frameworks in our review of OpenClaw alternatives.

• November 24, 2025: First public release, under the name Warelay per Wikipedia's OpenClaw article.
• January 27, 2026: Renamed Moltbot following trademark complaints by Anthropic.
• January 30, 2026: Renamed OpenClaw.
• March 2, 2026: Project reached 247,000 GitHub stars and 47,700 forks.
• August 30, 2026: OpenClaw 2.0 released, with improved usability per Wikipedia.

OpenAI Partnership and OpenClaw Foundation

Sam Altman announced Steinberger's recruitment to OpenAI by praising his technical insight into multi-agent environments. According to The Decoder, Altman called Steinberger a "genius with a lot of amazing ideas about the future of very smart agents interacting with each other." Altman added that "the future is going to be extremely multi-agent and it's important to us to support open source as part of that," per SiliconANGLE.

On his blog at steipete.me, Steinberger wrote "I'm a builder at heart" and said he had been "talking with the major labs" before choosing OpenAI. The Decoder quoted his reason for joining OpenAI instead of starting a company: "What I want is to change the world, not build a large company and teaming up with OpenAI is the fastest way to bring this to everyone." Euronews reported his goal as an agent "that even my mum can use."

Steinberger stated on his blog that "it's always been important to me that OpenClaw stays open source and given the freedom to flourish," and said OpenAI is sponsoring the project. Wikipedia reports that a non-profit OpenClaw Foundation would be set up to steward OpenClaw. Wikipedia also reports that Steinberger turned down a competing offer from Meta and moved to the United States in 2026, citing regulation in Europe.

Security Findings and Enterprise Operational Risks

Security researchers including Cisco identified flaws in community-developed OpenClaw skills that exposed users to data exfiltration and prompt injection without user awareness, as documented on Wikipedia.

In March 2026, Chinese authorities restricted state agencies and banks from running OpenClaw, citing unauthorized data deletion and leaks per Wikipedia.

Before connecting OpenClaw to company email or files, read our assessment of whether OpenClaw is safe for business. Running costs are covered in our guide to OpenClaw pricing and token costs.

Peter Steinberger Net Worth Reporting

As of October 2026, no named outlet has published a figure for Steinberger's net worth or his OpenAI compensation.

For the engineer who created Claude Code at Anthropic, see our profile of Boris Cherny. More profiles are in our list of AI people to watch.