Despite Elon Musk claiming just last month that his company Neuralink, which aims to create a computer implant that connects to the brain, will be ready for human tests in six months, a new investigation paints a different picture.
The company is now under federal investigation for its internal practices, including “potential animal-welfare violations amid internal staff complaints that its animal testing is being rushed, causing needless suffering and deaths,” according to Reuters.
The explosive report comes in the wake of the billionaire writing on Twitter last week that he is “confident that the Neuralink device is ready for humans, so timing is a function of working through the [Food and Drug Administration] approval process.”
Mr Musk has previously claimed the company will someday help paralyzed people walk and blind people see for the first time.
Pressure from Mr Musk to deliver these quick, headline-grabbing milestones has reportedly resulted in a pressure-cooker like internal environment, fraying employees and causing shoddy work that has unnecessarily harmed and even killed lab animals used to test Neuralink devices, Reuters says. The outlet says their report is the result of reviewing internal documents and conducting interviews with current and former employees.
The Independent has contacted Neuralink for comment.
The company, founded in 2016, has facilities in California and Texas. It has used rats, mice, pigs, sheep, and monkeys to test its devices. Per Reuters’ investigation, the US Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General is now probing Neuralink for its treatment of these animals at the request of a federal prosecutor.
Sources told the wire service that the federal agency is investigating potential violations of the Animal Welfare Act.
Employees described horror stories, from “hack job” animal surgeries, to a 2021 study where nearly half of the 60 pigs in a 2021 experiment had devices of the wrong size implanted into their heads.
All the while, three sources told the wire service, Mr Musk was pushing for faster work. He was reportedly telling employees to work as though they had a bomb strapped to their head.
All told, the company has killed roughly 1,500 animals since 2018, according to the internal records obtained by Reuters.
It’s not the first time the company has faced allegations of mistreating its animals.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine filed a complaint with the USDA earlier this year, accusing Neuralink of abuse during its collaboration with the University of California, Davis. The complaint alleged that, between 2017 to 2020, the company was responsible for monkeys with missing digits “possibly from self-mutilation or some other unspecified trauma,” and another primate that allegedly developed a bloody skin infection after a test and had to be euthanized, according to The New York Post.
“Pretty much every single monkey that had had implants put in their head suffered from pretty debilitating health effects,” Jeremy Beckham, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine’s research advocacy director, told The Post. “They were, frankly, maiming and killing the animals.”
The company defended its record in response to the February complaint.
“At Neuralink, we are absolutely committed to working with animals in the most humane and ethical way possible,” the company wrote in a blog post.
