While everyone knows that Elon Musk has been doing some crazy things ever since he has acquired Twitter and renamed it to X, we also know that he has been doing some great things when it comes to space technology with the help of SpaceX as well as he also has a brain implant startup called Neuralink which is set to implant chips into the human brains in order to study them and catch brain waves so that people with disabilities can also be able to interact with others with just their brain signals.
According to a new SEC filing, it has been revealed that Elon Musk’s Neuralink raised an additional $43M recently and while it was not announced, the filing shows that their tranche grew from $280 million to $323 million in early August led by Peter Theil’s founders’ fund. Neuralink’s valuation is not publicly revealed as yet but it is estimated that the company is currently valued at $5 Billion.
A report adds that Elon Musk’s startup which was founded in 2016, “Neuralink has devised a sewing machine-like device capable of implanting ultra-thin threads inside the brain. The threads attach to a custom-designed chip containing electrodes that can read information from groups of neurons”. Also worth noting is that “Brain-signal-reading implants are a decades-old technology. But Neuralink’s ostensible innovation lies in making the implants wireless and increasing the number of implanted electrodes.”
However, there are problems with Neuralink as well since it wirelessly implants chips into the human brain which leads to the problem of overheating and since they are not easily removable, it can cause permanent damage to the brain and this is also the reason why its FDA approval was delayed after being rejected at least twice. It is also reported that “In November 2023, U.S. lawmakers ask the SEC to investigate Neuralink for omitting details about the deaths of at least a dozen animals who were surgically fitted with its implants”. All of these issues have meant that there are a lot of problems with Neuralink so far but we know that they have received FDA approvals for human trials and are asking people to test their implants.
