Elon Musk's Brain-Implant Company Says It Has Placed Its First Chip in a Human

Neuralink's device, a coin-sized chip with threads finer than hair inserted into the brain, is meant to let a paralyzed person control a computer by thinking. Musk says the patient is recovering well. The company has released no details.

Elon Musk said on his social network today that Neuralink, the brain-implant company he founded in 2016, placed its device in a human patient yesterday and that the patient is "recovering well." He added that early results showed "promising neuron spike detection" — meaning the chip is picking up signals from brain cells. The company itself has said nothing, and no independent doctor has confirmed anything.

The device is a chip about the size of a coin, implanted in the skull, connected to more than a thousand electrodes on threads thinner than a human hair that a surgical robot inserts into the part of the brain that controls movement. The idea is to read the signals a person would send to their hand and translate them into moving a cursor or typing, so that someone paralyzed from the neck down can use a computer by intending to. Neuralink calls the product Telepathy.

Brain-computer interfaces are not new — researchers have had paralyzed patients moving cursors and robotic arms with implants for two decades, and several companies are ahead of Neuralink in human trials. What Neuralink brings is money, ambition, and Musk, who has talked about the device as a first step toward merging people with AI. The Food and Drug Administration approved the company's human trial last May, after rejecting an earlier application over safety concerns, and after reports about the deaths of monkeys in its animal testing.

For now it is one patient and one tweet. Whether the threads stay in place, whether the signals stay clear, and whether the patient can actually do anything with them are the questions the next months will answer.