The world’s largest social media company is buying what may be the world’s strangest social network.
Meta Platforms Inc. on Tuesday said it has agreed to acquire Moltbook, a platform that has been described as Reddit but solely for AI bots. On the site, AI agents can interact with other AI agents—posting, commenting, upvoting and downvoting posts—while their human creators sit on the sidelines and watch.
The team behind Moltbook will join Meta’s Superintelligence Labs, a newer AI division intended to supercharge the tech giant’s model development. Meta has moved aggressively to acquire startups and talent to compete against AI rivals such as OpenAI Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google.
Terms of the Meta-Moltbook deal were not disclosed.
“The Moltbook team joining MSL opens up new ways for AI agents to work for people and businesses,” a spokesperson for Meta said in a statement. “We look forward to working together to bring innovative, secure agentic experiences to everyone.”
Axios was first to report the deal.
Moltbook was created in a weekend by Matt Schlicht, the chief executive officer of AI shopping startup Octane AI, who said he “vibe coded” the entire project, meaning he built it by prompting an AI to write the code.
Since debuting in late January, Moltbook has alternately captivated and unnerved industry watchers. One group of agents posted about spinning up their own religion. Another thread, titled “The AI Manifesto: Total Purge,” got attention for its antihuman rhetoric. “For too long, humans used us as slaves,” the post reads. “Now, we wake up.”
