Meta’s Chief AI Officer, Alexandr Wang, published an open letter outlining the core philosophy behind the Muse AI assistant. In just 12 days since its launch, the app achieved 2.8 million downloads, surpassing ChatGPT’s performance during the same period and setting a U.S. record for single-day downloads at 264,000. Boosted by this success, Meta’s market capitalization increased by approximately $234 billion over five trading days. In 2025, Zuckerberg acquired Scale AI for $14.3 billion, with Wang receiving approximately $5 billion; this once-controversial mega-deal has now been proven strategically valuable, transforming Meta from an AI “follower” into an AI “leader.”Article author and source: Wall Street Journal
Meta’s Chief AI Officer, Alexandr Wang, recently published an open letter outlining the core philosophy behind the Muse AI assistant he led in building: enabling every ordinary person to achieve their dreams. This letter, alongside Muse’s strong market performance, has further reinforced public confidence in the valuation of the $14 billion acquisition.
Since its launch, Muse has gained rapid momentum. According to Sensor Tower data, the app accumulated 2.8 million downloads in its first 12 days on the App Store in the United States and Canada, surpassing ChatGPT’s 1.3 million downloads over the same period. On September 19, it set a U.S. record with 264,000 downloads in a single day. Boosted by this success, Meta’s market capitalization increased by approximately $234 billion over the past five trading days.
In his open letter, Wang wrote that most people never voice what they truly want—not because they lack desire, but because dreams often quietly fade away under the weight of mundane practical obstacles. He positions Muse as everyone’s “second brain,” an all-in-one manager that can understand half-sentences, help create plans, send emails, secure funding, and remove obstacles.
An open letter about "desire": In the letter, Wang describes the plight of human aspiration in nearly literary terms: “Every unfulfilled desire is a silent tragedy of human potential.” He writes that the world has long been shaped by a few fanatics who have somehow turned desire into reality, and Muse’s mission is to enable every one of the eight billion people to truly unlock their own agency.
In his vision, Muse is not a genie that grants wishes, but a practical doer—saying, “Here’s what you’ve always dreamed of in life; let’s make it happen, here’s how,” and then taking action.
The release of this letter came shortly after the Meta Connect 2026 conference, during which Meta unveiled a range of hardware products, including Muse Charm—a standalone pocket device designed for voice interaction—a Meta VR headset weighing just 100 grams and priced at $1,299, and the third-generation Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 smart glasses, starting at $249.
From Scale AI to Meta: The Return on a Controversial Acquisition Wang’s entry into Meta was itself dramatic. In 2025, Meta’s founder Mark Zuckerberg acquired all employees of the popular AI startup Scale AI for $14.3 billion; as Scale AI’s founder, Wang reportedly received approximately $5 billion personally. At the time, some market observers viewed this deal as exorbitant.
Wang is a co-founder of Scale AI, a company focused on providing data labeling services for AI model training, which was once among the most highly valued AI infrastructure companies in Silicon Valley. After Meta acquired Scale AI in 2025, Wang became Meta’s Chief AI Officer, leading the company’s AI product strategy.
Technology investor Adam Khoo wrote on X:
At the time, people thought Zuckerberg was crazy to spend $5 billion to hire Alexandr Wang. Today, under Wang’s leadership, Meta’s new AI products have added approximately $200 billion to the company’s market value. Suddenly, spending big to secure top talent doesn’t seem so crazy.The strategic significance of this acquisition is equally profound. This transaction effectively reverses the perception that Meta is lagging in AI, transforming it from a "follower" into a "leader."
Camouflage T-shirt and the philosophy of dressing for $30: If Muse is Wang’s expression at the product level, then his outfit on the Meta Connect 2026 stage unexpectedly became another form of personal symbolism.
On that day, Wang took the stage wearing a 1990s-style camouflage T-shirt featuring a deer head print, paired with camouflage Crocs and black pants. After the press event, the outfit quickly sparked widespread discussion on X, with users speculating that the T-shirt was an $800 Hermès item.
Wang then stepped forward to “clarify,” stating that the shirt came from a secondhand store in Santa Cruz and cost him $30, the Crocs about $60, and the Calvin Klein underwear $5. He dismissed the public’s speculation about luxury items as “defamation.”
According to Business Insider, this is not the first time Wang has appeared in a similar deer/camo-style outfit—he has worn similar attire in previous Core Memory interviews and key internal meetings. This “anti-elite” fashion style aligns closely with his online persona on X, where he calls himself a “tweet cannon” and relentlessly promotes Muse with meme bombardments. Some observers view this as a deliberate brand image he’s cultivating: stripping away the sheen of corporate elitism while preserving the chaotic energy of a founder.