Controversy Erupts After Sam Altman’s Identity Startup Falsely Claims Bruno Mars Tour Partnership

Last week, Tools for Humanity — the iris-scanning startup co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman — announced its new consumer product Concert Kit, a tool built to let verified human users access concert ticket purchases. The startup billed the product as launching first on Bruno Mars’ global tour for his latest studio album The Romantic.

Just days later, however, Bruno Mars’ management team and the tour’s producer Live Nation issued a joint statement to WIRED debunking the claim entirely. The supposed partnership “does not exist,” they confirmed, adding that Tools for Humanity (TFH) never even reached out to discuss any form of collaboration.

The mix-up traces back to TFH’s April 17 keynote event in San Francisco. During the presentation, chief product officer Tiago Sada said the company would partner with The Romantic Tour to offer not just ticket access, but exclusive “VIP experiences for verified humans.” That claim was later published in an official TFH blog post, which specifically noted the tour would feature opening act DJ Pee .Wee — the stage alias of musician Anderson .Paak — and that verified users would get access to exclusive VIP suite experiences at select tour stops.

Following the public denial from Mars’ team, TFH edited both the recorded event video and its public blog post, updating the launch partner claim to say Concert Kit will instead debut on Thirty Seconds to Mars’ 2027 European tour, fronted by actor and musician Jared Leto.

In their joint statement, Bruno Mars’ team and Live Nation doubled down on their rejection of the unapproved partnership: “To be clear, we were never approached by TFH, nor were we in any discussions regarding a partnership or tour access. We first learned that our tour was being used to promote their project after their keynote made those initial claims.” WIRED originally included the Mars partnership claim in its initial coverage of the TFH event, and has since updated its reporting to reflect the correction.

On Wednesday, a TFH spokesperson confirmed the error to WIRED, acknowledging the startup “does not have any agreement with Bruno Mars to test or feature Concert Kit, and there is no association or affiliation with the artist or his tour.” The company declined to explain why it named Mars and his tour as a launch partner in the first place.

Founded in 2019 by Altman and German entrepreneur Alex Blania, Tools for Humanity was built to use blockchain technology to verify human identities online, a space rife with scams and automated bot activity. In 2023, the company launched its signature physical product: an iris-scanning “orb” that pairs with a mobile app to confirm a user’s unique identity.

While Live Nation and Bruno Mars’ management noted they “have no opinions for or against their products,” TFH’s core offering puts it in direct tension with Live Nation’s core business. Concert Kit is explicitly marketed as a solution to the rampant bot problem that has long plagued Ticketmaster, the ticketing giant owned by Live Nation.

In September, Bloomberg reported that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission was already investigating Ticketmaster over whether the company has done enough to block bots from its platform. Ironically, Anderson .Paak — who is set to tour with Mars as DJ Pee .Wee on The Romantic Tour — even made a guest appearance at TFH’s San Francisco event to endorse the company’s anti-bot mission, telling the crowd, “I fucking hate bots … they make everything really shitty. Especially for the fans.”

TFH even called out Ticketmaster directly in last week’s Concert Kit press release, referencing the widely publicized 2022 Taylor Swift Eras Tour presale chaos, where Ticketmaster’s system crashed under 3.5 billion requests in a single day, locking millions of fans out of ticket purchases.

The false Bruno Mars partnership announcement was part of TFH’s “Lift Off” event, designed to build credibility for the company’s identity verification technology by announcing high-profile ties to major global brands. During the event, executives from Tinder, Zoom, and Docusign all announced expanded work with TFH. For years, the startup has struggled to win approval from governments around the world, many of which have raised questions about whether its technology is safe and protective of user privacy as a form of official identification.