“Elon’s Monkey Business” Charged with Cruelty

FREEMONT, CA (02-16) – Since its founding in 2016, Neuralink, a private for-profit company co-founded and owned in large part by Elon Musk, has been working on the development of brain-computer interface (BCI) implants that according to the company would enable a person suffering from “quadriplegia the ability to control their computer and mobile device with their thoughts…restore capabilities such as vision, motor function, and speech, and eventually expand how we experience the world…and unlock human potential tomorrow.”

Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), an international animal rights group of non-violent activists, protested at Neuralink’s headquarters on February 15 calling attention to the inhumane experiments the company has conducted on lab animals in their development of BCIs. The activists charge the company with employing cruel and unnecessary animal exploitation experiments that have subjected these saying that “…sentient animals to invasive brain chip implants, causing immense suffering and death. Primates, who share profound cognitive and emotional abilities with humans, are not disposable prototypes for tech experiments — they deserve freedom and respect.”

To drive their point home, they mimicked Musk’s famous short PR video when he first entered Twitter headquarters after purchasing the company while carrying a sink then tweeting the message, “Entering Twitter HQ — let that sink in!” Using a sink as a prop the activists chanted “It's time to let that sink in — animal testing is outdated and inhumane. Primates are not products, they are not test subjects, and they should not suffer for tech advancements.” When attempting to present a porcelain sink to the company to drive home their message, they were stopped in the parking lot by armed security guards backed by local police and warned against trespassing on to the company property.

No to be deterred, they continued with their highly visual protest backed by a giant Elon Musk photo with a speech bubble proclaiming “I torture monkeys.” Below, which were three large cages holding activists dressed as monkeys. In anthropomorphizing the monkey’s experiences as caged expendable commodities, they chanted “Monkeys, have friends just like we do!” Monkeys feel pain just like we do!” A large banner nearby called on passersby to “Stop Elon's Monkey Business.”

In addressing Musk’s continued development of BCI’s, DxE organizer Carla Cabral said, “Elon Musk’s actions are a profound example of the link between animal and human cruelty. While animals such as monkeys and pigs are being tortured and killed for Musk’s financial gain, he’s actively spewing hate toward trans people, immigrant communities, and other marginalized groups. And the federal government has shown no willingness to hold Musk accountable, including for Neuralink’s violence against animals. This leaves it to the public to put pressure on Neuralink to end the cruel and unnecessary violence toward animals.”

During Neuralink’s BCI development, the company contracted with the University of California, Davis Primate Center (UC Davis) in using Rhesus Macaque monkeys for experiments by placing BCIs into the animal’s brains that allowed them to play a computer game by moving a cursor on a screen “using their minds.” The abuse of primates for the development of Neuralink’s BCI was the subject of a complaint in 2022 by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. The group which advocates for non-animal testing by using alternatives such as AI lodged their complaint with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) alleging that lab animals used in experiments experienced “extreme suffering” due to the “highly invasive” implants among numerous other violations of the Animal Welfare Act.

Workers on the project also complained about the same issues of animals suffering unnecessarily and deaths. In a Reuters World article that same year, workers on the project complained too about “pressure from CEO Musk to accelerate BCI development that has resulted in botched experiments.” The article also went on to say that there were “1,500 animals killed” in experiments since 2018.

The USDA complaint also horrifically pointed out that, “…some monkeys used in this experiment underwent ‘multiple major survival surgical procedures’ in which as many as 10 craniotomies were performed and electrodes implanted into the animals’ brains.” In conclusion, they determined that there was, “… a systematic disregard for Animal Welfare Act regulations by UC Davis and Neuralink personnel. The carelessness by these facilities resulted in the suffering and death of several monkeys. We believe that this situation warrants a serious investigation by USDA.”

After years of development, clinical trials began last year with the first human to receive an implant. Noland Arbaugh who was paralyzed as the result of a diving accident has now regained his ability use a computer and play games by controlling a cursor through his thoughts. The small battery-operated N1 neural implant placed into his skull by the company’s proprietary surgical R1Robot attached each of 64 “ultra-thin threads” to his brain which monitor its activity communicating that information to the chip inside of the implant that sends it wirelessly on to “computers, smartphones, or a robotic device.” Presently, the device has been implanted in three people with Neuralink now “seeking “people with quadriplegia to participate in its groundbreaking investigational medical device clinical trial.”

While these efforts may seem noble in their intention and certainly would be overwhelmingly welcomed by those in need of such assistance to profoundly increase the quality of their lives, the downside of their widespread use presents the possibility of a future Orwelian styled dystopian society controlling its people through neural implants among other possibilities, scenario’s that consumers of science fiction are quite familiar with. To meet Musk’s stated vision for the future for BCIs being implanted in millions of people’s brains in the next two decades, Neuralink is presently busy developing an automated surgical robot to perform the procedures.

Although Neuralink proclaims “We keep the people who will use our products in mind, emphasizing safety, accessibility, and reliability during our engineering process” activists will not be easily convinced based on the company’s documented ill-treatment of lab animals and the ripe potential of abuse by autocrats in engineering devices for implantation into the brains of the masses.

Report and photos by Phil Pasquini

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