President of Elon Musk’s Neuralink firm quits

Hodak co-founded the company with Musk in 2016. Headquartered in San Francisco, Neuralink's team of around 100 people is trying to develop an implementable computer-brain interface.

San Francisco: Max Hodak, President of Elon Musk-founded brain-machine interface company Neuralink, has moved on to start a new venture.

Hodak co-founded the company with Musk in 2016. Headquartered in San Francisco, Neuralink’s team of around 100 people is trying to develop an implementable computer-brain interface.

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The aim of Neuralink is to increase the rate at which information can flow from the human brain to a machine.

“I am no longer at Neuralink (as of a few weeks ago). I learned a ton there and remain a huge cheerleader for the company! Onward to new things,” Hodak said in a tweet on Sunday.

He, however, didn’t elaborate on why he has left the company.

In what could help paralysed people to use their mind to operate a smartphone in the near future, Neuralink last month posted a YouTube video where a monkey can be seen playing a video game by navigating an on-screen cursor using his mind.

The Neuralink device recorded information about which neurons were firing as the money played the video game.

In 2020, the company publicly shared a wireless version of the ‘Link’ technology that was able to stream 1,024 channels of action potentials (also called “spikes”) wirelessly and in real time in a pig.

“We demonstrated its functionality by recording somatosensory (touch) signals in pigs exploring their environment. The electrodes were placed in a part of the brain involved in processing signals from the pig’s exquisitely sensitive snout. As it snuffled about, the responses of the neurons to sensory cues could be readily observed,” the company expla