Elon Musk will consider investing in rival Neuralink

Frustrated by the too slow progress of Neuralink, Elon Musk discussed this with Synchron, a competitor. Contacts that the multibillionaire is used to.

Neuralink, a company co-founded by Elon Musk, has been working on the brain-machine interface since 2016. per person have not started yet. Today, according to Reuters, Elon Musk contacted rival company Synchron in recent weeks to discuss a possible investment.

Frustrated by the too slow progress of Neuralink,

At the moment, it is not clear what Elon Musk could offer – whether it will be a collaboration or a “simple”financial investment – since neither party has responded or confirmed the information. Reuters sources also reportedly claimed that the deal was far from certain and that Synchron had not yet decided to accept Elon Musk’s offer. Apparently, the multi-billionaire reached out to the Synchron CEO after expressing his dissatisfaction with Neuralink’s teams due to slow progress.

In 2019, Neuralink announced that it was awaiting approval for human trials in 2020. In January of this year, the company began looking for a director of clinical trials to oversee human trials of the medical device. However, this phase has not yet begun, and the FDA has not yet reported Neuralink’s progress on this matter.

Elon Musk will discuss with Synchron, a competitor

At the same time, in July, Synchron announced that it had implanted its brain-computer interface into the motor cortex of a patient in the United States for the first time. Doctors at New York’s Mount Sinai West Hospital performed the operation as part of a COMMAND study to evaluate the safety of the Synchron implant in patients with severe paralysis. The company also completed a study in Australia that found that four people were in perfect condition after living with an implant for one year.

Like Neuralink, Synchron hopes to give people with limited mobility the ability to control devices like smartphones or computers with just a thought. This would give them some independence, allowing them to send emails, text messages, and perform other digital tasks. A few months ago, Max Hodak, co-founder of Neuralink who left the company in 2021, revealed that he had an advisory role at Synchron. He also invested in the company financially, “given [his] passion for what they do.”

Contacts that the multibillionaire is used to

Note that Elon Musk has already discussed this with other Neuralink competitors in the past. Reuters explains that the multi-billionaire specifically contacted developer Paradromics in 2020, but that was unsuccessful.