{"id":465188,"date":"2026-02-10T05:27:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T05:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/465188\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T05:27:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T05:27:14","slug":"dont-let-elon-musk-implant-a-device-in-your-skull","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/465188\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Let Elon Musk Implant a Device in Your Skull"},"content":{"rendered":"

The richest man in the world wants to implant a chip in your brain. You wouldn\u2019t be the first: as of last September, 12 people have already undergone the operation and 10,000 more<\/a> are on the waiting list.<\/p>\n

Elon Musk\u2019s experimental brain chip company, Neuralink, is entering its second year of clinical trials with the PRIME study<\/a>, which aims to \u201crestore autonomy to people with paralysis\u201d by enabling them to \u201coperate their phones and computers with just their thoughts.\u201d (PRIME stands for Precise Robotically IMplanted brain-computer interfacE; one can only hope that its researchers are better at neurology than they are acronyms.)<\/p>\n

The program has had its successes, but the medical advancements have come at a cost\u2014and Musk is no longer content with healing the sick and injured. In fact, the billionaire\u2019s ambitions seem to be twice as vast as the regulatory hurdles he has sidestepped to get there. Elon Musk wants to transcend the human form. To do so, it\u2019ll only take a few thousand experiments on us regular folk.<\/p>\n

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Neuralink\u2019s strides in medicine have been impressive so far. Since the PRIME study began in 2023, at least two paralyzed patients have gained the ability to operate a cursor with their mind, according to the company<\/a>. The first was 31-year-old Noland Arbaugh<\/a>, who is now able to write text messages, send emails, and play video games using a mind-operated interface. The second, 26-year-old Rocky Stoutenburgh, recently shared a video of himself moving a robotic arm using only signals from his brain. In October<\/a>, the company launched a new clinical trial with the slightly more ambitious goal of translating thoughts directly into speech, specifically targeting people who have lost the ability to speak due to stroke, ALS, or other severe speech impairments. <\/p>\n

These are all impressive feats, with the aim of improving quality of life for people with disabilities. But Neuralink wants to expand its market. \u201cWe\u2019re currently envisioning a world where in about three to four years, there will be someone who\u2019s otherwise healthy who\u2019s going to get a Neuralink,\u201d the company\u2019s president, DJ Seo, said at a recent conference<\/a> in Seoul, South Korea. \u201cIf you\u2019re imagining saying something, we would be able to pick that up.\u201d <\/p>\n

Suddenly, we\u2019re talking about a third-party brain implant with access to all of your thoughts and imagination. Sure, why wouldn\u2019t a perfectly healthy person want that? Seo hinted at the potential benefits of such technology:<\/p>\n

We think that it’s actually possible to demonstrate abilities to speak to the latest AI model, or LLM models, at the speed of thought, even faster than how you’re speaking, and being able to potentially get that information back through your AirPods, effectively closing the loop.<\/p>\n

What Seo is describing here is a form of ChatGPT (or more accurately Grok, Musk\u2019s anti-woke version) implanted directly in your brain. It\u2019s hard to imagine a more pointless technology, and one clearly designed to erode human thought. If you\u2019ve been depressed by all the obvious AI language online, just wait until it arrives face-to-face!<\/p>\n

\u201cHow was your day, honey?\u201d you might ask your wife as she arrives home from work in the year 2028. She\u2019ll pause only momentarily to adjust her left AirPod, waiting for Inner Brain Grok to deliver her lines: \u201cGreat question\u2014and one that shows you\u2019re not only invested in this relationship, you\u2019re putting the work in. This isn\u2019t mindless chatter\u2014it\u2019s connection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s your turn to respond, inducing a momentary panic since you haven\u2019t had an original thought in months. Thankfully your newly-implanted brain chip is here to help: \u201cHow about a movie night?\u201d Inner Brain Grok will prompt you to reply. \u201cI\u2019ve prepared a compilation of 5-6 of Elon Musk\u2019s most unhinged epic memes. Should we watch them on the couch, or in our separate bedrooms with our eyes closed?\u201d Thanks to Neuralink, you\u2019ll never have to have a real conversation ever again!<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s most concerning about Neuralink\u2019s plans, besides the decay of human consciousness, is how the company has repeatedly avoided oversight in the past. At nearly every stage in its growth, Neuralink has been accused of skirting regulations, misleading investors, and prioritizing rapid development over safety. Right now, Musk\u2019s brain chips are only available to a small portion of the population. What happens when they\u2019re advertised to the masses?<\/p>\n

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Art by Ben Clarkson<\/a> from Current Affairs Magazine, Issue 57, January-February 2026<\/p>\n

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The first victims of the company were a group of rhesus macaque monkeys. In December 2022, the U.S. Department of Agriculture opened a probe into the company \u201camid internal staff complaints that its animal testing [was] being rushed, causing needless suffering and deaths,\u201d according to Reuters. After reviewing internal documents, the outlet wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

One employee, in a message seen by Reuters, wrote an angry missive earlier this year to colleagues about the need to overhaul how the company organizes animal surgeries to prevent \u201chack jobs.\u201d The rushed schedule, the employee wrote, resulted in under-prepared and over-stressed staffers scrambling to meet deadlines and making last-minute changes before surgeries, raising risks to the animals.<\/p>\n

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These allegations follow a pattern: no matter the industry, Musk needs to be fast and first, product safety be damned. In 2017, when Tesla began ramping up production of its Model 3, Musk announced plans to produce 5,000 units of the car per week. Workers were unable<\/a> to meet even half of that goal in the first quarter, despite reports<\/a> of grueling hours and nights spent sleeping on the factory floor. Recent safety inspections<\/a> of the Model 3 in Denmark and Germany revealed that 23 percent of the vehicles failed to meet safety standards.<\/p>\n

When Musk purchased Twitter in 2022, he similarly hit the ground flailing. 80 percent<\/a> of the workforce were fired within five months, and the remaining staff were told to accept an \u201cextremely hardcore\u201d work culture or get out. At a town hall meeting following the acquisition, Musk told the audience<\/a>, \u201cIf nothing else, I am a technologist and I can make technology go fast and that\u2019s what you\u2019ll see on Twitter.\u201d His rapid changes\u2014like slashing content moderation and making users pay to get verified\u2014resulted<\/a> in bots swarming the site and advertisers pulling their funds. <\/p>\n

This \u201ccut first, measure later\u201d strategy has failed over and over, but that won\u2019t stop Musk from trying again. At Neuralink, too, he seems most concerned about other companies beating him to the punch. The Reuters report continues:<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, [Elon Musk] sent staffers a news article about Swiss researchers who developed an electrical implant that helped a paralyzed man to walk again. \u201cWe could enable people to use their hands and walk again in daily life!\u201d he wrote to staff at 6:37 a.m. Pacific Time on Feb. 8. Ten minutes later, he followed up: \u201cIn general, we are simply not moving fast enough. It is driving me nuts!\u201d<\/p>\n

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On several occasions over the years, Musk has told employees to imagine they had a bomb strapped to their heads in an effort to get them to move faster, according to three sources who repeatedly heard the comment. <\/p>\n

The immediate result of this overdrive was roughly 1,500 dead animals, either killed directly by Neuralink\u2019s experiments or euthanized afterward. It seemed that monkeys had it the worst. A 2023 expose by Wired <\/a>detailed the gruesome effects of the company\u2019s first brain chips\u2014and how Neuralink scientists refused to euthanize a suffering primate, even as the device was clearly torturing her. (Warning: the following passage is disturbing.)<\/p>\n

The tan macaque with the hairless pink face could do little more than sit and shiver as her brain began to swell. The California National Primate Center staff observing her via livestream knew the signs. Whatever had been done had left her with a \u201csevere neurological defect,\u201d and it was time to put the monkey to sleep. But the client protested; the Neuralink<\/a> scientist whose experiment left the 7-year-old monkey\u2019s brain mutilated wanted to wait<\/a> another day. And so they did.<\/p>\n

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An autopsy would later reveal<\/a> that the mounting pressure inside her skull had deformed and ruptured<\/a> her brain. A toxic adhesive<\/a> around the Neuralink implant bolted to her skull had leaked internally. The resulting inflammation had caused painful pressure on a part of the brain producing cerebrospinal fluid, the slick, translucent substance in which the brain sits normally buoyant. The hind quarter of her brain visibly poked out<\/a> of the base of her skull.<\/p>\n

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Somehow, the USDA determined there was no evidence of animal welfare issues, despite outcry from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine<\/a>, who claimed the agency had \u201cwiped violations from public record.\u201d The department reopened its investigation in late 2024, just as the Securities and Exchange Commission opened their own inquiry into the company for lying to investors about safety. But the window for accountability was already closing. In January 2025, during the first week of his second term, President Donald Trump fired 17 inspectors general, including Phyllis Fong, the official overseeing<\/a> the Neuralink USDA inquiry. After several top officials at the SEC were also fired, their investigation, too, seemed to dry up<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If the regulatory safeguards aren\u2019t catching these issues, it\u2019s worth asking what happens when Musk\u2019s technology fails. History has shown that it often does\u2014from rocket ships that explode<\/a> at the launchpad to Cybertrucks whose aluminum frames snap<\/a> and crack<\/a> at the first sign of stress. In Neuralink\u2019s first human trial, roughly 85 percent<\/a> of the electrode threads connected to Noland Arbaugh\u2019s brain detached within the first three works, leaving the brain chip essentially useless. <\/p>\n

After telling Arbaugh they could not remove the chip, Neuralink\u2019s scientists were able to remotely update its software and allow the implant to regain function<\/a>; still, the fact that it would detach almost entirely within a month, leaving it untethered in somebody\u2019s brain, gives cause for alarm. No one is demanding that medical devices function perfectly during trials\u2014these are experiments, after all, and participation is voluntary. But when a company rushes production, any negative side effects are going to fall under scrutiny. <\/p>\n

Even if the hardware worked perfectly, one needs to consider the longevity of Neuralink as a whole. Just look at Second Sight Medical Products: a biotech company that faced looming bankruptcy after they\u2019d already inserted several hundred bionic eye implants in blind patients. More than 350 people gained partial vision with the technology, only for several of them to find the devices useless after the company discontinued the product. As Business Insider<\/a> writes:<\/p>\n

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Now, hundreds of people who still have the old implant have been left in the lurch: no software upgrades as promised, and no repairs if something goes wrong. It means some have lost their sight altogether, and many more risk the same, according to IEEE Spectrum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Imagine that happening inside someone\u2019s brain: your neural functions suddenly compromised because the company went under, stopped updating software, or decided it wasn\u2019t profitable to maintain. These concerns might be why, as of 2022, only two<\/a> of Neuralink\u2019s original eight founders remained at the company, with co-founder Benjamin Rapaport<\/a> citing safety concerns over the \u201camount of brain damage\u201d used in Neuralink\u2019s insertion method as a reason for his departure. <\/p>\n

Yet Neuralink keeps moving forward, fueled by hundreds of millions in investor funding and the promise of something far beyond medical necessity. In June of this year, the company received $650 million in funding from a slew of investors in order to<\/a> \u201cinnovate future devices that deepen the connection between biological and artificial intelligence.\u201d One of the key investors was Peter Thiel\u2019s Founders Fund, which raised a separate $280 million<\/a> for the company back in 2023. If you need any extra convincing that Neuralink\u2019s long-term goals have always been to create quasi-immortal human robots, then look no further. Thiel is obsessed with cheating death. <\/p>\n

Like many billionaires, the Palantir founder seems to believe that he can invest his way to eternal life, and the paper trail confirms it. Back in 2006, Thiel donated several million dollars to immortality scientist Aubrey de Grey, who attempted to tinker with the mitochondrial DNA of cells to prevent them from aging. In 2010 he invested $500,000 in Halcyon Molecular<\/a>, a company which aimed to \u201ccreate a world free from cancer and aging\u201d (but later went bankrupt). In 2021, Thiel co-founded NewLimit, a startup focused<\/a> on epigenetic reprogramming for lifespan extension, bringing his total portfolio to at least 12 different longevity companies<\/a>. Now he\u2019s funneling money into Neuralink, a company whose goal posts appear to be rapidly shifting. <\/p>\n

But if anyone were paying attention, Elon Musk has shown his cards from the start. Musk has repeatedly suggested that brain implants could eventually move beyond assisting disabled patients and enter the realm of transhumanism\u2014specifically, the ability to store human consciousness outside the body.<\/p>\n

In 2017, long before AI chatbots were the stuff of daily use, Musk planned for his brain chips to one day fuse with artificial intelligence: \u201cIf we achieve tight symbiosis, the AI wouldn\u2019t be \u2018other\u2019\u2014it would be you,\u201d he told the tech blog Wait But Why.<\/a> He claimed<\/a> to have been inspired by sci-fi series The Culture, which explores a world where all individuals are fitted with a \u201cneural lace.\u201d Written by Iain M. Banks, the books describe an advanced brain-computer interface that allows users to upload their consciousness, communicate internally with machines, and essentially live forever. In this fictional universe, the neural lace contributes to a socialist utopia; resource scarcity is eliminated, destroying the need for money, and people are free to pursue whatever they desire.<\/p>\n

But we can\u2019t expect the richest man in the world to possess the kind of reading comprehension necessary to see beyond the plot. In 2018, only seven years before Musk would join the U.S. government and cut billions of dollars from USAID, potentially causing millions of deaths<\/a> across the globe, he called himself<\/a> \u201ca utopian anarchist of the kind best described by Iain Banks.\u201d <\/p>\n

Something tells me that the author, who sadly died several years before Musk\u2019s declaration, might not agree. In his lifetime, Banks endorsed the Scottish Socialist Party, campaigned against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and refused to sell his books in Israel in support of Palestinian liberation, a cause he was inspired to join after witnessing South Africa\u2019s own \u201cracist apartheid regime,\u201d he wrote in the Guardian<\/a>. Musk, meanwhile, is a warmongering technocrat whose father says<\/a> he\u2019s not racist only because Elon was friends with \u201cseveral Black servants\u201d as a child. (In, you guessed it, apartheid South Africa.) But Musk\u2019s hubris will always blind him from realizing that he is the villain. <\/p>\n

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To Elon, heroes win, and there is nothing more noble than first place. We saw this mindset unveiled in its full horror on the evening of January 20, 2025. Standing onstage at Trump\u2019s inaugural rally, after pouring over $250 million and the last remaining shreds of his dignity<\/a> into the campaign, Musk must have felt that he\u2019d won, and he celebrated the fruits of his labor with a triumphant Roman salute. Within minutes, anyone with access to cable TV, the internet, or their own eyeballs was calling him a Nazi.<\/p>\n

But one man watching had unique insight\u2014not only into Musk\u2019s right-wing psyche, but into how his megalomania may have influenced the formation of Neuralink.<\/p>\n

Shortly after Trump\u2019s inauguration, Dr. Philip Low, a neuroscientist and former collaborator of Musk\u2019s, penned this scathing letter<\/a> on social media:<\/p>\n

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I have known Elon Musk at a deep level for 14 years, well before he was a household name. […] Elon is not a Nazi, per se.<\/p>\n

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He is something much better, or much worse, depending on how you look at it. Nazis believed that an entire race was above everyone else. Elon believes he is above everyone else. […]<\/p>\n

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All his talk about getting to Mars to \u201cmaintain the light of consciousness\u201d or about \u201cfree speech absolutism\u201d is actually BS Elon knowingly feeds people to manipulate them. Everything Elon does is about acquiring and consolidating power. That is why he likes far right parties, because they are easier to control.<\/p>\n

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Dr. Low says he\u2019s witnessed firsthand this insatiable desire for power. Back in 2007, Low launched his own neuroscience company, NeuroVigil, with a mission of developing \u201cnon-invasive brain monitors and advanced machine learning algorithms\u201d to detect diseases in the brain. (Sound familiar?) Musk is listed as an adviser on the official NeuroVigil website, and is quoted as calling the company the \u201conly one\u201d with \u201ctrue potential to completely revolutionize neuroscience.\u201d\u00a0In a 2014 interview for Raw Science<\/a>, the two sit side-by-side, with Low donning a SpaceX \u201cOCCUPY MARS\u201d T-shirt.<\/p>\n

Two years later, Musk launched Neuralink\u2014and in 2021, he was reportedly fired from Neurovigil\u2019s board after Low claims \u201che tried to manipulate NV\u2019s stock.\u201d Low says his parting email to Musk ended with the lines: \u201cGood luck with your implants, all of them, and with building Pottersville on Mars. Seriously, don\u2019t fuck with me.\u201d <\/p>\n

The neuroscientist didn\u2019t come forward with this story until several years later, just as it seemed the entire world was debating over that televised Third Reich salute. Musk\u2019s former friend left the public with one pressing piece of advice:<\/p>\n

He only wants to control, dominate and use you \u2014 don\u2019t let him and cut him and his businesses out of your and your loved ones\u2019 lives entirely. Remember he is a total miserable self-loathing poser, and unless you happen to be one too, he will be much more afraid of you than you should ever be of him. <\/p>\n

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What Musk is afraid of is falling behind. The issue is, that fear becomes much more sinister when the competition at hand is no longer between companies, or even two political candidates, but between technology and humanity as a whole. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have the choice,\u201d Musk said<\/a> in 2017, \u201cOf either being left behind and being effectively useless or like a pet\u2014you know, like a house cat or something\u2014or eventually figuring out some way to be symbiotic and merge with AI.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s hilarious is that this so-called \u201cchoice\u201d is entirely his own creation. No one is asking for this. It is nowhere near inevitable. Musk is the one pursuing digital immortality, while shedding any democratic safeguards that might restrain him. He is the one who wants to leave humans behind\u2014both internally, by fusing with artificial intelligence, and physically, by abandoning our home planet in favor of a cold and lifeless one.<\/p>\n

Maybe as a billionaire, when the small and infinite joys of daily life elude you, humanity loses its appeal. Author Joyce Carol Oates recently said it best, writing of Musk<\/a>: \u201cSo curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates\u2014scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend\u2019s or relative\u2019s accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died […] In fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured.\u201d The poorest people of all, she continued, \u201cmay have more access to beauty and meaning\u201d than the world\u2019s wealthiest man.<\/p>\n

Musk responded<\/a> by saying that \u201ceating a bag of sawdust\u201d would be more enjoyable than reading Oates\u2019 work. Shortly after, Grok began telling<\/a> users that Musk is \u201camong the top 10 minds in history\u201d and that his intellect rivals Leonardo da Vinci and Isaac Newton. When the real world doesn\u2019t respect you, I suppose, why not build your own?<\/p>\n

And so Musk envisions a future in which the wealthy abandon biological limitation, living indefinitely in digital or hybrid form. Personally, I am not too concerned about what happens if he succeeds. If there one day exists a world in which rich people discover immortality, so be it. A digital afterlife filled exclusively with Jeff Bezoses and Peter Thiels and Elon Musks sounds like the seventh layer of hell. I will gladly choose to die normally, at age 80 or 70 or even 45, if it means I don\u2019t have to participate. <\/p>\n

What concerns me are the real-life human beings Neuralink might mutilate in this pointless pursuit. The company hopes to one day open its recruitment to the general public\u2014and while traditional disability-assistive medicine has clear ethical frameworks and regulatory pathways, immortality experiments in human subjects do not. Just remember: Elon Musk thinks our human brains, in their current form, are \u201ceffectively useless.\u201d So what might he do with yours?<\/p>\n

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