Openclaw founder: Not interested in billions of dollars in funding; the project must be open source to ensure accessibility.

According to ME News, on February 13th (UTC+8), Openclaw founder Peter Steinberger confirmed in an interview with Lex Fridman that Openclaw has received acquisition offers from multiple companies. Regarding potential funding of hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, Steinberger stated, "I have absolutely no interest in that. I've been a CEO once, and that path would consume all my time and create conflicts of interest, such as prioritizing enterprise versions or modifying the open-source license, which would harm the community. What I want is completely free and open source without any strings attached. And relying on donations is simply unsustainable right now; even popular projects like Tailwind are laying off staff." Furthermore, Steinberger stated that Openclaw is currently losing money. Monthly revenue is $10,000 to $20,000, but this subsidizes projects maintained by individuals. While companies like OpenAI offer some support, it's still unsustainable. Regarding the option of collaborating with large labs, Steinberger stated that the core condition is that the project must remain open source, similar to Chrome and Chromium. "This is too important to be left entirely to one company. Moreover, the community atmosphere at ClawCon is incredibly valuable; it's the kind of passion that only existed in the early days of the internet. I want to share it with more people. This year is the year of personal agency, and collaborating with labs is the fastest way. I've never worked for a large company before, and I want to experience this." (Source: ME)