Sam Altman’s Merge Labs: OpenAI-Backed Rival to Elon Musk’s Neuralink

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, is reportedly preparing to take on Elon Musk’s Neuralink with a new brain-computer interface startup, Merge Labs. According to the Financial Times, Sam Altman is in early talks to raise funds for the venture, with much of the capital potentially coming from OpenAI’s ventures team. If successful, Merge Labs could be valued at around $850 million.

Apparently, Merge Labs is working with Alex Blania, CEO of Tools for Humanity, which did Sam Altman’s eye scanning ID project. This move positions Sam Altman’s Merge Labs as a direct competitor to Neuralink, which Musk founded in 2016. Neuralink has made significant progress, including clinical trials for people with severe paralysis, enabling them to control devices using only their thoughts. The company recently raised $600 million at a $9 billion valuation.

Both Neuralink and Merge Labs aim to push humanity toward “the singularity” a future where humans merge with technology. Altman previously wrote about “The Merge” in 2017, predicting humans would design their own descendants through advanced technology.

The rivalry between Sam Altman and Musk has been intense since Musk left OpenAI in 2018, and their recent public exchanges on X (formerly Twitter) suggest the competition is far from friendly.

If Merge Labs moves forward, it could become a major player in the brain-computer interface market, reshaping how humans interact with technology and potentially rivaling Neuralink’s dominance.