In 2016, Musk launched Neuralink with help from seven scientists and one engineer. Only two remain of the founding group—Musk and engineer DJ Seo. The goal of Neuralink is to develop brain machine-interfaces to help people with paralysis. To help run Neuralink Musk called in the help of Shivon Zilis, who previously worked at Tesla, and was a director at OpenAI, which he co founded but no longer owns. Musk and Zilis are close, so close that he fathered her twins, who were conceived through IVF. (Musk Tweeted last year that he was, “Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis.”) Zilis has spent nearly seven years at Neuralink, where she’s director of operations and special projects. Jared Birchall, a Musk fixer, is listed as CFO, amongst other titles, of Neuralink, according to documents. Here are the other executives that populate the ranks of the startup.
Read an updated version of this story here.
Elon Musk
Cofounder, CEO
Executives
Jared Birchall
CFO, secretary
Birchall holds those roles according to a 2023 statement of information; that’s in addition to his work at xAI and Musk’s family office.
DJ Seo
VP of engineering
Seo is a founding member of the Neuralink team.
Nir Even-Chen
Head of brain interfaces applications
A former senior research scientist at Lyft.
Shivon Zilis
Director of operations and special projects
A former project director at Tesla; Zilis is also the mother of Musk’s twins.
Jeremy Barenholtz
VP of product and technology
Former head of brain interfaces software at Neuralink.
Conor Lenahan
Head of brain interfaces mechanical engineering
Philip Mao
Deputy general counsel
Andrew Musk
Software engineer
Musk’s cousin
Cofounders who have since left the company
Paul Merolla, Max Hodak, Timothy Hanson, Tim Gerdner, Venessa Tolosa, Ben Rapoport, Philip Sabes
Board
Jared Birchall
Director
