Four US lawmakers have formally urged the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to initiate an investigation into Elon Musk's statements regarding the safety of Neuralink's brain implant technology, Reuters reports.
The request alleges potential securities fraud by Musk, CEO of Neuralink, for purportedly misleading investors about the risks associated with the innovative technology - violating SEC Rule § 240.10b-5.
X (formerly Twitter) CEO Elon Musk gestures during an in-conversation event with Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London on November 2, 2023, following the UK Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit.
Musk's Neuralink Experiments Killed Off 12 Monkeys
The call for scrutiny, spearheaded by Democratic House Representatives Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, and Barbara Lee and Tony Cardenas of California, revolves around concerns raised about Neuralink's handling of safety protocols during animal testing.
According to the letter sent to the SEC, the lawmakers highlight significant discrepancies between Musk's public statements and internal data from Neuralink's experiments involving monkeys.
Citing veterinary records obtained from these experiments, the lawmakers point out that at least 12 monkeys experienced severe health repercussions due to the implants, ultimately leading to their euthanasia.
These records indicated a range of distressing outcomes, including paralysis, seizures, brain swelling, and other adverse effects linked directly to the Neuralink implants.
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Musk's Neuralink Statements Under Scrutiny
Musk, in a post on his social media platform X, attempted to ease investor concerns by asserting, "No monkey has died as a result of a Neuralink implant," and indicating that the company selected "terminal" monkeys to minimize risk to healthier ones.
However, the lawmakers dispute these claims, highlighting evidence contradicting Musk's statements, suggesting that the monkeys weren't in a terminal state and were relatively young before being subjected to Neuralink's experiments.
This push for an SEC investigation stems from a history of allegations and concerns surrounding Neuralink's animal testing practices.
Earlier this year, Reuters reported on the company's rushed surgeries on monkeys, pigs, and sheep, allegedly resulting in a higher number of animal deaths than necessary.
This rush for results reportedly came from Musk himself, pressuring staff to hasten the safety data required by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve human testing.
Neuralink, valued at approximately $5 billion, has recently announced receiving FDA clearance for its first human clinical trial without disclosing the trial's specifics.
Here is the full letter shared by Wired:
The Honorable Gary Gensler
Chair
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
100 F St. NE
Washington, DC 20549
Dear Chair Gensler:
Thank you for your ongoing work to protect investors and safeguard the integrity of our financial system. We write to request that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigate whether Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer of the medical device company Neuralink (Central Index Key # 0001708503), committed securities fraud by making intentionally misleading statements to investors.
Since 2016, Neuralink has conducted experiments on animals with the intention of developing an implantable brain-computer interface. Between May 2017 and December 2020, employees performed invasive, exploratory brain studies on rhesus macaques at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis). During most of the experiments, Neuralink employees drilled two dime-sized holes in the animals' heads, implanted electrodes in their brains, and attached titanium plates to their skulls using bone screws.
In 2021, as a result of a California Public Records Act lawsuit against UC Davis, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine obtained veterinary records from Neuralink's experiments that show that the implantation of the Neuralink device caused debilitating health effects in the monkeys. Test monkeys suffered from chronic infections, swelling in the brain, "remnant electrode threads" from the device, a "tattered" cerebral cortex, paralysis, seizures, loss of coordination and balance, and depression. Public records reveal that at least 12 young, previously healthy monkeys were euthanized by Neuralink as a direct result of problems with the company's implant.
On September 10, 2023, Mr. Musk responded to animal welfare concerns at Neuralink via a post on the social media platform X, which he also owns. He wrote:
"No monkey has died as a result of a Neuralink implant. First our early implants, to minimize risk to healthy monkeys, we chose terminal mon[k]eys (close to death already)[.]"
Yet Mr. Musk knows this statement is false. Monkey health records show that, while several animals had suffered physical trauma and been used previously in experiments at UC Davis, there is no evidence that they were "close to death," as Mr. Musk stated. Rhesus macaques often live to about 25 years in captivity, with some living to 40. But the average age of the 12 monkeys euthanized by Neuralink was 7.25 years when they were moved to the company's experimental protocol.
The animals' deaths and the reasons for their deaths relate directly to the safety and marketability of Neuralink's brain-computer interface. It is critical that the company provide investors with factually accurate information, and thus we are concerned that Mr. Musk may have violated SEC Rule § 240.10b-5:
It shall be unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly, by the use of any means or instrumentality of interstate commerce, or of the mails or of any facility of any national securities exchange...[t]o make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading...in connection with the purchase or sale of any security.
In its 2018 complaint against Mr. Musk for posting misleading messages on the platform then known as Twitter, the SEC referenced his 22 million followers, emphasizing the reach of his social media account: "His tweets were published instantaneously to those people and were also publicly available to anyone with Internet access."
Mr. Musk's online reach has grown significantly since 2018. Today, he has 162.9 million followers on X, the most of any account on the platform, and his September 10 post has already received more than 788,000 views.
The company claims to have raised $280,274,981 in investments, with a minimum investment accepted from any outside investor of $14,995, according to its August 2023 Form D notice. Given the scale of these investments and Mr. Musk's history of misleading investors, it is crucial that the SEC investigate whether Mr. Musk's September 10, 2023 post violated SEC Rule § 240.10b-5.
Thank you for considering this request.
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