The Neuralink Controversy: What accusations have been brought against Elon Musk’s company just this month

Elon Musk and Neuralink

South African billionaire Elon Musk announced that Neuralink has performed its first brain implant in a patient, but his neuroscience research company has been embroiled in several controversies over the years.

Court documents seen by Reuters earlier this month showed that Neuralink was fined by the US Department of Transportation (DOT) for violating rules on the transportation of hazardous materials.

The irregularities were discovered during inspections last February of Neuralink’s Texas and California buildings, when US federal inspectors discovered that Neuralink had not registered as a transporter of hazardous materials.

They also found that hazardous waste was improperly packaged, including packets of xylene, a flammable gas. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coming into contact with xylene can cause dizziness, confusion, headaches, loss of muscle coordination and even death.

The DOT fined Neuralink $2,480, an amount considered ridiculous by the company’s detractors, but it enjoyed leniency because it admitted wrongdoing and promised to fix them.

A spokesman for the Hazardous Materials and Pipeline Safety Administration, the DOT agency that conducted the inspections at Neuralink, confirmed the media reports, saying the investigation has since been closed.

Neuralink did not respond to requests for comment.

Internal DOT documents were obtained by the Physicians Commission for Responsible Medicine, an NGO that opposes the use of animals in medical research. PCRM obtained the documents through a request for access to information of public interest.

However, the official documents do not specify why Neuralink would have needed to transport hazardous waste or whether the violations of safety standards caused damage to human health.

Neuralink was embroiled in an even bigger scandal in December 2022 A separate investigation published by Reuters in December 2022 revealed that Neuralink is the subject of a federal investigation in the US over possible violations of regulations on the use of animals in medical experiments, including internal documents from Musk’s company showing his employees’ concerns about the subject.

More than 20 former Neuralink employees and some who were still working at the company at the time agreed to be interviewed about the issue, most of them on condition of anonymity, saying that Neuralink’s tests had to be repeated because they were done hastily, which unnecessarily led to the death of many animals.

Among the documents obtained during the investigation were internal messages sent by Neuralink employees, audip recordings, emails, presentations and reports. The investigation was launched after alleged irregularities in Neuralink’s monkey experiments were reported by animal rights activists as early as February 2022.

US regulations do not specify the number of animals that companies can use in research, with scientists having a wide margin of discretion in this regard.

In total, Neuralink slaughtered around 1,500 animals between 2018 and December 2022, including 280 sheep, pigs and monkeys. Sources within the company, however, emphasized that the number is an approximate one since Neuralink does not keep exact data on the number of animals on which experiments were performed and which were slaughtered.

Neuralink also conducted tests on mice and rats.

While the total number of animals slaughtered does not necessarily indicate that Neuralink violated regulations regarding the experiments, current and former Neuralink employees have alleged that it is higher than it should be due to Elon Musk’s claims to speed up testing.

Reuters was able to determine from interviews and documents it obtained that four experiments done over the years on pigs and monkeys were marked by human error.

Mistakes affected the final results of the research, which were repeated to confirm the initial findings. Several employees blamed the errors on the lack of thorough preparation of the experiments, stating that this was in turn due to the stressful work environment.

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