Musk investigation. It’s about animal cruelty.

Neuralink is under federal investigation by the USDA over animal welfare, Reuters reported.

Twenty former and current employees of the medical technology company told Reuters that the work environment at Musk’s company made employees feel pressured, work in a hurry, make inattentive mistakes during testing, and cause more suffering and death to animals.

Animal testing

According to the report, as of 2018, about 1,500 animals, including sheep, pigs, and monkeys, were killed while testing Neuralink. The company made several reckless mistakes, either with the wrong surgical adhesive or the wrong size brain chip, which resulted in the scientists having to kill the animals and start the experiments again. Reuters was unable to determine if the federal investigation involved the same alleged animal testing issues that were identified in interviews with employees.

Many employees said that Musk told them to imagine a bomb attached to their heads to make them move faster.

“We’re just not moving fast enough. It drives me crazy,” he wrote to staff earlier this year.

brain implant

Neuralink was founded by Musk and a group of scientists and engineers in 2016 to develop brain chips that would allow computers to read brain signals. Last week, Musk announced that he plans to begin human clinical trials next year and said he would test the brain-chip device himself.