Elon Musk’s co-founded company Neuralink is apparently the subject of a federal investigation into possible Animal Welfare Act violations.
The company, which describes itself as working on “creating the future of brain-computer interfaces,” is being investigated for similar violations and is also being accused of rushing its animal testing programs, as was made clear in a lengthy Reuters article published on Monday.
Notably, the allegations relating to animal testing come from what the magazine claims are “dozens” of internal documents and employee interviews. The study does note that it is not yet obvious whether the government probe is focusing on such claims (i.e. failed tests leading to more animals being tested and/or killed).
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General is claimed to have started the latter, and the report notes that this was specifically in response to a federal prosecutor’s request that such an investigation be started.
This is not the first time that Neuralink has faced accusations of mistreating or abusing animals. For instance, the company has been accused of subjecting its test animals, many of which were monkeys, to “extreme suffering” earlier this year.