Elon Musk has had many business endeavors.
Zip 2
In 1995, Elon, his brother Kimbal, and their friend Greg Kouri founded the company—initially named Global Link—which provided maps and business directories to online publications.
The first X.com
In 1999, he joined forces with Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne, and Ed Ho to create an online bank. After Elon was removed as CEO the following year, Peter Thiel took over and turned it into what is now known as PayPal.
Space X
In 2002, Elon founded the spacecraft manufacturing company with the goal of colonizing Mars and making space travel more accessible.
Starlink
In 2015, SpaceX began operating Starlink, a satellite internet constellation.
Tesla
Elon didn’t found his most popular brand. Instead, he started out in 2004 as the chairman of the board of directors and became the largest shareholder of the company. He became its CEO four years later in 2008.
SolarCity
In 2016, Tesla acquired Elon’s cousins Peter and Lydon Rive, which provides solar power systems.
The Boring Company
In 2017, Elon founded this company to provide tunnel construction services and equipment.
Twitter—now known as X
In April 2023, Elon officially became the owner of Twitter, renaming it X.
But none of these have caused more controversy than Neuralink.
Neuralink’s origins
Founded in 2016 with a team of scientists and engineers, Neuralink is a neurotechnological company that aimed to treat brain diseases and enhance human function.
“A Fitbit for your skull”
In Aug. 2020, Elon gave a product update streamed on YouTube, revealing details of his plans for Neuralink. He announced that the company was working on a brain implant, which would work similarly to a Fitbit, but it would be implanted in your cranium.
The monkey trials
Before it was announced to the public, the implant was tested on monkeys from 2017 until 2020.
The monkey trials reportedly went awry.
In Dec. 2022, the PCRM (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine) filed a complaint with the USDA against Neuralink for violating the Animal Welfare Act with its experiments. According to Reuters, the report alleged that the company killed over 1,500 animals during the testing period.
Elon Musk unwaveringly stood by Neuralink after the monkeys trial.
On Sept. 10, he tweeted, “No monkey has died as a result of a Neuralink implant.
First our early implants, to minimize risk to healthy monkeys, we chose terminal moneys [sic] (close to death already).”
New allegations of animal abuse came out in Sept. 2023
Veterinary reports obtained by WIRED detailed the many ways that the experiment allegedly harmed the monkeys, including bacterial infections and loss of body coordination.
Despite issues in the animal trials, in Jan. 2022, it was plans of a clinical trial on humans were announced.
Neuralink put out a job ad looking for a clinical trial director.
Neuralink’s human trials were given the green light in May 2023.
The FDA approved the clinical trials after initially rejecting an application to start them in 2022.
The PRIME Study
In Sept., the company announced The PRIME Study. It was described by Neuralink as “a groundbreaking investigational medical device trial for our fully-implantable, wireless brain-computer interface (BCI) – aims to evaluate the safety of our implant and surgical robot, and assess the initial functionality of our BCI for enabling people with quadriplegia to control external devices with their thoughts.”
Neuralink also has controversial qualifications for its human trial volunteers.
The site notes that those interested in volunteer qualify if they’re a United States who “is at least 18 years old and the age of majority in their state, who is able to consent, and who has quadriplegia, paraplegia, vision loss, hearing loss, the inability to speak, and/or major limb amputation (affecting above or below the elbow and/or above or below the knee).”
Surprisingly, it received many volunteering applicants.
Bloomberg reported on Nov. 7 that thousands of people applied to test out the brain implants.
Despite its controversial concept, Neuralink has raised a significant number of funds.
According to a report from TechCrunch published on Nov. 25, the company recently received $43 million from billionaire investor Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. A total of 32 investors contributed to the hefty funds.
Neuralink has raised over $100 million so far.
The total number is more than $323 million.
Neuralink isn’t the only reason Elon Musk is making headlines these days.
Elon endorsed an antisemitic tweet.
A Twitter user wrote on the social media platform that Jewish people are “coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don’t exactly like them too much.” Elon replied, “You have said the actual truth.”
His tweet made X (formerly known as Twitter) lose an important advertiser.
IBM, which was one of the social media platform’s biggest advertisers, decided to pull its ads from X following Elon’s tweet.
Elon decided to do some major damage control.
As reported by The New York Times, Elon traveled to Israel and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, Nov. 27, where he visited the site of a Hamas attack.
Recently, his ex-partner Grimes also accused him of not paying child support.
In Sept., Elon sued Grimes to “establish the parent-child relationship” with their three children.
He accused her of moving from their home base in Texas to California “in an apparent attempt to circumvent jurisdiction” of the lone state’s courts. While Texas limits monthly child-support payments at $2,760 for three children, California has no limitation on payment, which means the billionaire would have to pay up more.
In Oct., the alt-pop singer sued Elon for physical custody of their children.
According to Business Insider, Grimes alleged that Musk had custody of her three-year-old son, X Æ A-Xii “over [her] objection.” She also said that she tried to track down her ex at 12 different locations to serve him child custody papers, but was unable to reach him.
Soon, Elon Musk’s peculiar life will be turned into a movie.
Variety reports that Darren Aronofsky is set to direct a biopic based on the South African tycoon’s life for A24. There’s no word yet on whether Neuralink’s controversies will make it on the film.