ELON Musk wants to “give people superpowers” like eagle vision with his controversial Neuralink brain chip.
The tech billionaire has revealed that a second person is now trialling the implant, which is designed to help paralysed patients control digital devices with nothing but their thoughts.
Noland Arbaugh, 29, became the first human to receive the chip after a “freak diving accident” eight years ago dislocated two of his vertebrae, causing him to be paralysed from the neck down.
The Arizona-born user previously had to us a stick in his mouth to tap a screen.
With Neuralink, all he needs to do is think about what he wants the computer to do and it will happen.
This has reduced Arbaugh’s reliance on a carer – and has even enabled him to play video games with friends.
Musk, 53, revealed in a podcast that another paralysed person is now using Neuralink.
“I don’t want to jinx it but it seems to have gone extremely well with the second implant,” he told podcast host Lex Fridman.
“There’s a lot of signal, a lot of electrodes. It’s working very well.”
He didn’t share when the surgery was carried out.
But Musk said he expects Neuralink will be implanted into eight more patients this year as part of ongoing clinical trials.
“Let’s give people superpowers,” he continued.
“Do you want to see it in radar? No problem.
“You could see ultraviolet, infrared, eagle vision, whatever you want.”
Musk also envisages Neuralink enabling “symbiosis” between humans and AI to prevent the technology from overtaking us.
“It’s an idea that may help with AI safety,” he explained.
“We could better align collective human will with AI if the output rate especially was dramatically increased.
“And I think there’s potential to increase the output rate by, I don’t know, three, maybe six, maybe more orders of magnitude. So, it’s better than the current situation.”
He claimed the implant will eventually have the power to repair damaged neurons to help with conditions like like blindness and paralysis.
“It can also solve, probably, schizophrenia if people have seizures of some kind,” he said.
“It could probably solve that. It could help with memory.”
Elon Musk is the world's second richest man with a net worth of $196.5billion.
The 52-year-old has co-founded six major companies, including X.com which eventually became PayPal.
Ebay bought PayPal for $1.5billion in October 2002.
He used $100million from the sale to launch SpaceX, one of the world’s leading spaceflight companies, with ambitions to eventually travel to Mars.
The company also provides Starlink internet services beamed from SpaceX’s satellites.
Musk was an early investor in Tesla too and is now the electric car giant’s largest shareholder.
One of his most notorious business ventures was the takeover of Twitter, costing $44billion – which was later rebranded to X in a nod to his early success.
But Musk’s most controversial project is Neuralink, a firm that’s creating tech implants for the brain to help people with neurological disorders.
The South African-born businessman was the world’s richest man for sometime but lost his crown in 2024.
He also broke the Guinness World Record for largest lose of personal fortune, estimated by Forbes to be around $165billion.
