Neuralink is targeted by US authorities for animal cruelty

Elon Musk is pushing for speed at his brain chip company, Neuralink. But the animals in particular may suffer as a result of unnecessary experiments.

Elon Musk announced on Wednesday that he wants to test Neuralink’s brain chip on humans in six months. Shortly after the announcement of the clinical test series, it is now known that the company is in the focus of the US federal authorities. Reason are possible violations of animal welfare, how Reuters reported.

Has Neuralink Violated Animal Welfare?

The investigation has been going on for several months. It was initiated by the US Department of Agriculture’s inspector general at the request of a federal attorney, Reuters has learned from two sources.

The investigation therefore focuses on violations of the Animal Welfare Act. This specifies how researchers may treat animals in tests.

The workforce is also dissatisfied

As Reuters further reported, the Neuralink staff is now also fighting against the approach used in research. According to internal documents, the company is ‘rushing through animal testing’. This would lead to “unnecessary suffering and death.”

The main reason for this is the pressure from above – i.e. from CEO Elon Musk. He wants to speed up development, which leads to “botched experiments”.

Internally, the employees have already tried to advocate a “traditional testing approach”. Instead, the company runs the tests so quickly one after the other that it cannot fix previous problems or errors and cannot draw any conclusions from the tests.

The result: More animals are tested and killed overall, in part because this approach leads to repeated testing.

Hundreds of animals died in the experiments

Reuters has access to previously unpublished internal documents for its report. Among them are news, sound recordings, e-mails, presentations and reports.

Among other things, this shows that around 1,500 animals have died during the company’s tests since 2018. The number is said to be a rough estimate as the company does not have an accurate record of the number of animals tested and killed.

Noisy Reuters the total number “doesn’t necessarily indicate” that the company violated any regulations. However, current and former employees are convinced that an unnecessarily large number of animals are being killed. This is only the case because Musk is calling for research to be accelerated.

The company also carried out experiments that were affected by human error and therefore had to be repeated. This also caused the number of animals killed to rise sharply. Current and former employees see the reasons for this in the “lack of preparation of the test staff”, who are under a lot of pressure.

In a letter earlier this year, an employee called for the type of animal testing to be changed. Because “the rushed schedule” and the “insufficiently prepared and overworked employees” would lead to the employees: inside “struggling to meet deadlines”. That would increase “the risks for the animals”.

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