File picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, in New York. The billionaire congratulated Mr. Modi on the Lok Sabha election win
| Photo Credit: PTI

American tech billionaire Elon Musk on Friday said he is looking forward to his companies doing “exciting work” in India as he congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his historic election victory.

Mr. Modi will be administered the oath of office on June 9, his third consecutive term as Prime Minister.

“Congratulations @narendramodi on your victory in the world’s largest democratic elections! Looking forward to my companies doing exciting work in India,” Mr. Musk said in a post on X.

The congratulatory message came two months after the CEO of the electric carmaker Tesla and microblogging platform X in April postponed his proposed visit to India due to “very heavy Tesla obligations”.

Mr. Musk — who was expected to be in India on April 21 and 22 and scheduled to meet Prime Minister Modi — later wrote on X that he is looking forward to coming to India later this year.

In June last year, Mr. Musk met with Mr. Modi during the latter’s U.S. visit and stated that he planned to visit India in 2024 while expressing confidence that Tesla would enter the Indian market soon.

His proposed visit had raised expectations that he would announce plans for electric car maker Tesla to set up shop in the country, along with his satcom venture Starlink.

It was also expected that Mr. Musk would announce plans for Tesla to set up its manufacturing unit in India and investments could be to the tune of billions of dollars and the way forward for selling Tesla electric cars in India at the earliest.

Not just electric cars, he is also eyeing the Indian market for his satellite internet business Starlink, for which regulatory approvals are awaited.

Mr. Musk had in the past sought import duty reduction in India for it to be able to sell Tesla cars in the country.

Mr. Musk’s plan to visit India in April came on the heels of the government announcing a new electric vehicle policy, under which import duty concessions will be given to companies setting up manufacturing units in the country with a minimum investment of $500 million, a move aimed at attracting major global players like Tesla.

Washington:

U.S. businessman Elon Musk recently told investors that his artificial intelligence startup xAI is planning to build a supercomputer to power the next version of its AI chatbot Grok, The Information reported on Saturday citing a presentation to investors.

Musk said he wants to get the proposed supercomputer running by the fall of 2025, as per the report, adding that xAI could partner with Oracle to develop the massive computer.

xAI could not be immediately reached for comment. Oracle did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

When completed, the connected groups of chips – Nvidia’s flagship H100 graphics processing units (GPUs) – would be at least four times the size of the biggest GPU clusters that exist today, The Information reported quoting Musk from a presentation made to investors in May.

Nvidia’s H100 family of powerful GPUs dominate the data center chip market for AI but can be hard to obtain due to high demand.

Musk founded xAI last year as a challenger to Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Alphabet’s Google. Musk also co-founded OpenAI.

Earlier this year, Musk said training the Grok 2 model took about 20,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs, adding that the Grok 3 model and beyond will require 100,000 Nvidia H100 chips.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk is seeking to meet senior Chinese officials in Beijing to discuss the rollout of Full-Self Driving (FSD) software in China. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A private jet linked to Tesla CEO Elon Musk landed in Beijing on April 28, a flight tracking app showed, as two people with knowledge of the matter said the billionaire was kicking off a surprise visit to the automaker’s second-biggest market.

Mr. Musk is seeking to meet senior Chinese officials in Beijing to discuss the rollout of Full-Self Driving (FSD) software in China and to obtain approval to transfer data collected in the country abroad to train algorithms for its autonomous driving technologies, one of the people said.

Tesla has since 2021 stored all data collected by its Chinese fleet in Shanghai as required by Chinese regulators and has not transferred any back to the United States.

The U.S. electric vehicle maker rolled out FSD, the most autonomous version of its Autopilot software, four years ago but has yet to make it available in China despite customers urging it to do so.

Mr. Musk said this month Tesla may make FSD available to customers in China “very soon”, in response to a query on social media platform X.

Rival Chinese automakers such as Xpeng have been seeking to gain an advantage over Tesla by rolling out similar software.

Also Read | How a Chinese rocket failure boosted Elon Musk’s SpaceX in Indonesia

Mr. Musk’s visit to China was not flagged publicly and the people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak with media. Tesla did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

The trip came just over a week after he scrapped a planned visit to India to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, citing “very heavy Tesla obligations.”

The company said this month it would lay off 10% of its global workforce as it grapples with falling sales and an intensifying price war for EVs led by Chinese brands.

Landed in Beijing

A Gulfstream private jet with tail number N272BG, which is registered to Falcon Landing, a company connected to SpaceX and Tesla, landed at Beijing Capital Airport on Sunday at 0603 GMT, according to Chinese flight tracking app Flight Manager.

The other jet registered under Falcon Landing is N628TS, which is Mr. Musk’s main jet that he used to travel to China on his last trip nearly a year ago, when he met with Chinese government officials in Beijing and visited Tesla’s Shanghai factory.

Tesla has sold more than 1.7 million cars in China since it entered the market a decade ago and the Shanghai factory is its largest globally.

Mr. Musk’s visit coincides with the Beijing autoshow, which opened last week and ends on May 4. Tesla does not have a booth at China’s largest autoshow and last attended in 2021.

GM CEO Mary Barra made an unannounced visit to the show in the world’s biggest auto market on Friday, according to two people with knowledge of her schedule. GM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Also on Friday, Grace Tao, Tesla’s vice president in charge of external relations in China, published a commentary on the social media account of state media outlet People’s Daily, arguing that autonomous driving technologies would be the new growth engine for EV industry.

Also Read | Tesla recalls over 1.6 million EVs exported to China to fix automatic steering, door latch glitches

Ms. Tao said in the article that Tesla was leading autonomous driving research and development with its “end-to-end neural network” technology and data collected from millions of cars on the road.

China’s complicated traffic conditions with more pedestrians and cyclists than in many other markets provide more scenarios that are key for training autonomous driving algorithms at a faster pace, according to industry experts.

Mr. Musk said last week Tesla would introduce new, cheaper models using its current EV platforms and production lines and would offer a new “robotaxi” with self-driving technology. He said in a post on X this month that he would unveil the robotaxi on August 8.

Tesla shares are down almost a third since the start of the year as concerns have grown about the EV maker’s growth trajectory. Last week, Tesla reported its first decline in quarterly revenue since 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic slowed production and deliveries.

New Delhi:

Tesla chief Elon Musk is set to announce an investment in India of $2-$3 billion, mainly for building a new factory, when he visits New Delhi next week to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, two sources familiar with the discussions said.

Elon Musk will meet PM Modi on Monday during his India trip, when the billionaire is expected to unveil his plans to enter the world’s third-largest auto market where electric car adoption is still in its infancy.

India’s EV market is small but growing and dominated by local carmaker Tata Motors. EVs made up just 2% of total car sales in 2023, but the government is targeting 30% of new cars to be EVs starting 2030.

Elon Musk’s visit comes as Tesla battles slowing sales in the major markets of the United States and China, and has this week announced layoffs affecting 10% of its workforce.

Details of Elon Musk’s India visit are closely-guarded, with the CEO only publicly confirming on his social media platform X that he will meet PM Modi in India.

The two sources said Elon Musk will likely give an investment figure for India without sharing details such as a timeline or an Indian state where the plant will be built.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

For years, Elon Musk opposed India’s high import taxes for EVs and lobbied for a change. India’s government in March unveiled a new EV policy lowering import taxes to 15% from as high as 100% on some models if a carmaker invests at least $500 million and sets up a factory.

Tesla has already started scouting for showroom space in New Delhi and Mumbai, and its Berlin factory is producing right-hand drive cars it aims to export to India starting later this year, Reuters has reported.

Elon Musk is also likely to attend an event organised by the Indian government in New Delhi with space startups, the two sources said.

Elon Musk owns the US space company SpaceX.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Billionaire Elon Musk recently sued OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman, the firm behind ChatGPT, accusing them of breaching contractual agreements made when he helped start the ChatGPT-maker in 2015. He alleged that they violated the artificial intelligence startup’s founding mission by putting profit ahead of benefiting humanity. The Microsoft-backed company’s focus on seeking profits breaks that agreement, lawyers for Elon Musk said in the lawsuit. Notably, Elon Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but stepped down from the company’s board in 2018.

Now, the Tesla and SpaceX Chief has stated that he would drop the lawsuit against OpenAI if they agree to change their name to “‘ClosedAI”. Mr Musk said in a post on X, “Change your name to ClosedAI and I will drop the lawsuit.” In subsequent posts, he said, “OpenAI needs to stop living a lie.”

To ClosedAI and I will drop the lawsuit

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 6, 2024

Further, he edited a picture of Sam Altam wearing a guest ID Card and changed the details of the card with the words “ClosedAI” alongside OpenAI’s logo.

Fixed it pic.twitter.com/KPtYLsJU3h

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 6, 2024

This comes as the AI company released a set of private emails with Elon Musk in response to the lawsuit on March 6. “We’re sad that it’s come to this with someone whom we’ve deeply admired — someone who inspired us to aim higher, then told us we would fail, started a competitor, and then sued us when we started making meaningful progress towards OpenAI’s mission without him,” they said in a blog post.

In 2017, “we all understood we were going to need a lot more capital to succeed at our mission — billions of dollars per year, which was far more than any of us, especially Elon, thought we’d be able to raise as the non-profit,” they said.

As per the blog and emails, Mr Musk suggested that the AI company be attached “to Tesla as its cash cow”. However, when the OpenAI team refused he “soon chose to leave OpenAI, saying that our probability of success was 0,” adding he planned to build an AGI competitor within Tesla.

“When he left in late February 2018, he told our team he was supportive of us finding our own path to raising billions of dollars,” OpenAI added.

When a Chinese rocket malfunctioned shortly after launch in April 2020, destroying Indonesia’s $220 million Nusantara-2 satellite, it was a blow to the archipelago’s efforts to strengthen its communication networks. But it presented an opportunity for one man.

Elon Musk – the owner of SpaceX, the world’s most successful rocket launcher – seized on the failure to prevail over state-owned China Great Wall Industry Corp (CGWIC) as Jakarta’s company of choice for putting satellites into space.

The Chinese contractor had courted Indonesia – Southeast Asia’s largest economy and a key space growth market – with cheap financing, promises of broad support for its space ambitions and the geopolitical heft of Beijing.

A senior government official and two industry officials in Jakarta familiar with the matter told Reuters the malfunction marked a turning point for Indonesia to move away from Chinese space contractors in favour of companies owned by Musk.

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Nusantara-2 was the second satellite launch awarded by Indonesia to CGWIC, matching the two carried out by SpaceX at that time. Since its failure, SpaceX has launched two Indonesian satellites, with a third set for Tuesday; China has handled none. SpaceX edged out Beijing through a combination of launch reliability, cheaper reusable rockets, and the personal relationship Musk nurtured with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Reuters found. Following a meeting between the two men in Texas in 2022, SpaceX also won regulatory approval for its Starlink satellite internet service.

The SpaceX deals mark a rare instance of a Western company making inroads in Indonesia, whose telecommunications sector is dominated by Chinese companies that offer low costs and easy financing. The successes came after Indonesia resisted U.S. pressure to abandon its deals with Chinese tech giant Huawei, citing its dependence on Beijing’s technology. Details of this shift, which were described to Reuters by a dozen people, including Indonesian and U.S. officials, industry players and analysts, have not previously been reported. Some of them spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorised to talk to media.

“SpaceX has never failed in launching our satellites,” said Sri Sanggrama Aradea, head of the satellite infrastructure division at BAKTI, an Indonesian communications ministry agency.

The April 2020 incident makes it “hard” for Jakarta to turn to CGWIC again, he added. SpaceX, CGWIC and Pasifik Satelit Nusantara – a key shareholder in the Nusantara-2 project – did not respond to questions for this story. China’s Foreign Ministry said in response to Reuters questions that “Chinese aerospace enterprises are continuing their space cooperation with Indonesia in various forms.” It did not elaborate.

Presidential office spokesperson Ari Dwipayana said the government prioritises efficient and capable technology that meets the need of Indonesians when awarding contracts.

The tussle between SpaceX and China offers a window into a much larger battle to dominate a rapidly expanding space industry.

The global satellite market – including manufacturing, services and launches – was worth $281 billion in 2022, or 73% of all space business, according to U.S. consultancy BryceTech.

SPACE RACE

China launched a record 67 rockets last year, out of 223 globally, according to a report by Harvard professor and orbital tracker Jonathan McDowell. The vast majority were launched by CGWIC.

That put China only behind the United States, which had 109 launches, 90% of which were done by SpaceX, the report found.

Washington and Beijing are also competing over satellite-based communications networks.

SpaceX’s Starlink, which owns around 60% of the roughly 7,500 satellites orbiting earth, is dominant in the satellite internet sphere. But, last year, China began launching satellites for its rival Guowang broadband mega-constellation.

U.S. military officials have said China wants to use satellites and space technology to spy on rivals and increase military capabilities.

China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement to Reuters the U.S. allegations were a smear and that Washington was using the concerns as a pretext to expand its influence in space.

Unlike its Chinese counterpart, NASA relies primarily on privately owned rockets from firms such as SpaceX, which has billions of dollars in U.S. government contracts. But the U.S. government and military are concerned about their reliance on SpaceX, especially given Musk’s muscular business style, according to one current and one former U.S. official working on space policy.

While legacy U.S. defence contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin typically consult the State Department before making foreign deals, Musk and SpaceX dealt directly with Jakarta, the two officials said.

In response to Reuters’ questions, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson said the company “works closely with the U.S. Government, our allied nations and international customers”. Boeing declined to comment and the State Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Pentagon spokesperson Jeff Jurgensen declined to answer specific questions about SpaceX, but said the Department of Defense’s “many space industry partnerships have a proven track record of success”. Nicholas Eftimiades, a former U.S. intelligence officer and expert on Chinese espionage operations at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank, said SpaceX’s CEO had ruffled some feathers in the U.S. capital: “Elon Musk does things his way and some officials don’t like that”.

Nonetheless, Musk’s deals bucked a long-running trend of Western firms losing out to Chinese businesses in Indonesia, a sprawling archipelago of over 17,000 islands that is home to more than 270 million people.

Widodo said in October that Beijing is set to become the largest foreign direct investor in Indonesia within two years, surpassing Singapore. Chinese companies dominate the internet and 5G market, so Beijing was the obvious partner for satellite launches until the 2020 incident, said Andry Satrio Nugroho, an economist at the Jakarta-based Institute for Development of Economics and Finance think-tank.

“Indonesia has a close relationship with China across many sectors. It’s difficult to break China’s dominance.”

STARBASE MEETING

In May 2022, Jokowi, as the powerful Indonesian president is popularly known, visited a SpaceX facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

“Welcome to Starbase,” Musk said, smiling and shaking hands with the president, who was seeking Tesla investment in Indonesia’s nickel sector.

Widodo’s two-hour visit included 30 minutes of talks with Musk at an office packed with miniature rockets and then a tour of the production area, according to an Indonesian official with direct knowledge. The president has long sought to build an EV industry in Indonesia, which has the world’s biggest reserves of nickel, a key element in electric batteries. The term-limited leader leaves office in October, but experts say Widodo will remain a major power broker after the candidate he tacitly supported to be his successor claimed victory in the Feb. 14 presidential election. Widodo told Reuters last year that to woo Musk, he has also offered tax breaks, a concession to mine nickel and a subsidy scheme on EV purchases. But a Tesla EV or battery factory in Indonesia, which Widodo has publicly asked for, have not materialised.

Instead, days after the trip, according to a source with direct knowledge, Indonesian officials began discussing another of Musk’s businesses: Starlink.

During the Texas meeting, Musk asked Widodo to let Starlink into Indonesia, the source said.

Telkomsat, a subsidiary of state-owned telecoms firm Telkom, was supportive, its former chief executive Endi Fitri Herlianto told Reuters. For months, the telco had sought regulatory approval so that Telkomsat could use Starlink services for cellular backhaul, or connecting mobile base stations to its network, Herlianto said.

Officials were concerned about the potential impact on domestic telcos if a permit was granted. The plan made no headway – until the Boca Chica visit.

“GAME CHANGER”

Less than a month after the Texas meeting, Telkom announced its subsidiary had received Starlink landing rights.

Indonesia’s communication ministry told Reuters that Starlink is only permitted to operate a backhaul service with Telkomsat and that it does not have the right to retail consumer internet services.

Musk “put that ask on the table then and there, so things started,” said the source with knowledge of Indonesian discussions, referring to the May meeting.

Widodo’s spokesperson, Dwipayana, confirmed that Musk and the president discussed opportunities in Indonesia, adding that officials are still in communication with the billionaire about future investments by his businesses, including Tesla.

Telkom did not respond to requests for comment. Last June, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket pushed into orbit the 4.5-tonne Satellite of the Republic of Indonesia (SATRIA-1) – Southeast Asia’s largest satellite.

Nia Satwika, a SATRIA-1 project manager, said SpaceX offered lower costs and had higher availability of launch slots when compared with other operators. “They are a game changer,” she said, referring to SpaceX’s ability to reuse parts of its rockets – a crucial cost advantage over rivals.

London:

Tesla CEO and ‘X’ owner, Elon Musk said on Wednesday that Artificial Intelligence (AI) could endanger the existence of human civilisation.

“There is some chance, above zero, that AI will kill us all. I think it’s slow but there is some chance. I think this also concerns the fragility of human civilization. If you study history, you will realise that every civilisation has a sort of lifespan,” he said.

His remarks came during a media interaction as he arrived to attend the United Kingdom hosted world’s first global Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit.

Moreover, Musk was also seen having conversations with some of the participants at the summit.

Earlier, a day before attending the AI summit, Musk appeared on comedian Joe Rogan’s podcast, in which he that artificial intelligence (AI), if programmed by people in the “environmental movement”, may lead to the extinction of humanity.

In the podcast, he said, “Actually, what I think the biggest danger is for AI is that if AI is implicitly programmed, I don’t think they explicitly but implicitly programmed with values that led to the destruction of downtown San Francisco. And a bunch of these AI companies are in San Francisco or in the San Francisco Bay Area. Then you could implicitly program an AI to believe that extinction of humanity is what it should try to do.”

He added, “I think the most likely outcome to be specific about it is a good outcome, most likely a good outcome. But it’s not for sure. So i think we’re to be careful how we program the eye and make sure that it is not accidentally antihuman.”

Moreover, the social media company Meta President said, “I’m looking forward to attending the AI Safety Summit in the UK this week. I hope we spend as much time as possible developing much-needed solutions to current problems – for example, on the transparency and detectability of AI-generated content.”

He added, “not just debating speculative future risks about AI models that currently do not exist, and may never possess the autonomy and agency that some people fear.”

The summit underway in UK will see a convergence of governments, academia and companies working in artificial intelligence to debate and identify risks, opportunities and the “need for international collaboration, before highlighting consensus on the scale, importance and urgency for AI opportunities” a statement by the British High Commission read.

Moreover, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said that he will do a live conversation with Elon Musk on X after the AI summit.

PM Sunak posted on X, “In conversation with @elonmusk. After the AI Safety Summit, Thursday night on @x.”

The summit aims to put light on the transformative benefits that AI technology can offer, putting a predominant focus on “education and areas for international research collaborations”.

Representatives from The Alan Turing Institute, The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Ada Lovelace Institute are also among the groups confirmed to attend.

Prime Minister Sunak had last week stated that the summit will focus on understanding the risks such as potential threats to national security including the dangers a loss of control the technology could bring.

On the agenda are discussions around issues likely to impact society, such as election disruption and erosion of social trust.

According to government estimates, the UK already employs over 50,000 people in the AI sector and contributes 3.7 billion pounds to its economy annually. Michelle Donelan will be joined by members of the UK’s Frontier AI Taskforce – including its Chair, Ian Hogarth. The task force was launched earlier this year with an aim to evaluate the risks of frontier AI models (generative language models of AI).

Additionally, on the first day of the Summit, Union Minister of State Rajeev Chandrasekhar participated the AI summit and conveyed India’s thoughts on AI.

On the second day of the summit, Chandrasekhar will contribute to discussions regarding the establishment of a collaborative framework for AI among like-minded nations. He will shed light on India’s perspective concerning AI risks in areas such as disinformation and electoral security.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Tesla on Tuesday was cleared by a court in the 2019 fatal Model 3 crash that took place in Los Angeles, US, involving its advanced driver-assistance system, Autopilot. The case was filed by two passengers who accused the company of knowing Autopilot was defective when it sold the car. Tesla, on the other hand, argued that human error caused the crash. The court too found that the vehicle did not have a manufacturing defect. Now, Tesla chief Elon Musk also reacted to the news and expressed his belief that if Autopilot had been activated, the driver would likely have been saved.

“The irony is that if Autopilot had been turned on here, it would almost certainly have saved the driver,” Mr Musk wrote in on X (formerly Twitter). 

The irony is that if Autopilot had been turned on here, it would almost certainly have saved the driver

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 1, 2023

Micah Lee was killed in 2019 after their Model 3 veered off a highway, hit a tree, and caught fire. While Mr Lee was killed in the incident, his two passengers were injured. The two passengers then approached the court alleging that Autopilot caused the accident and demanded over $400 million in punitive damages. This trial was the first in the United States that alleged that Tesla’s autopilot feature led to death. 

Tesla, however, denied liability alleging that Mr Lee had consumed alcohol and that it was unclear if Autopilot was engaged during the crash. The Jury in Riverside County Superior Court also voted in favour of Mr Musk’s company, saying that the vehicle did not have a manufacturing defect. 

Also Read | Ola EV Sales Up By 30%, CEO Says Staff ”Working More Than 70 Hours” To Meet Demand

This is a major victory for Tesla as it faces several other similar lawsuits across the country. But the automaker continues to test and roll out its Autopilot and more advanced Full Self-Driving (FSD) system, which Mr Musk has touted as crucial to his company’s future. 

Notably, the latest verdict represents Tesla’s second big win this year. The automaker won an earlier trial in Los Angeles in April with a strategy of saying that it tells drivers that its technology requires human monitoring, despite the “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving” names. The case was about an accident where a Model S swerved into the curb and injured its driver. 

Elon Musk was ordered by a US judge to face most of a lawsuit claiming he defrauded former Twitter shareholders. (File)
| Photo Credit: AP

Elon Musk was ordered by a US judge to face most of a lawsuit claiming he defrauded former Twitter shareholders last year by waiting too long to disclose that he had invested in the social media company, which he later bought and renamed X.

In a decision made public on Monday, US District Judge Andrew Carter said shareholders in the proposed class action could try to prove that Musk intended to defraud them by waiting 11 days past a US Securities and Exchange Commission deadline to reveal he had bought 5% of Twitter’s shares.

The judge in Manhattan also dismissed an insider trading claim against Musk, the world’s richest person. Lawyers for Musk did not immediately respond on Tuesday to requests for comment.

Shareholders led by an Oklahoma firefighters pension fund said Musk saved more than $200 million by adding to his Twitter stake, and quietly talking with its executives about his plans, before finally disclosing a 9.2% stake in April 2022.

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The shareholders also said they sold Twitter shares at artificially low prices because Musk hid what he was doing. Musk’s lawyers argued that their client was “one of the busiest people on the planet,” and that any disclosure failure was “inadvertent.”

Carter said he could not infer that Musk was “too busy” to comply with SEC rules if he could find time to buy Twitter shares, meet with company executives, and post online about Twitter.

He also found evidence that Musk understood the 5% disclosure rule, including that he had testified about it under oath, and had properly disclosed stakes in his electric car maker Tesla and the former SolarCity at least 20 times.

Katie Sinderson, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, declined to comment. Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion last October. Under the SEC rule, investors have 10 days to disclose when they have acquired 5% of a company.

Twitter shares rose 27% on April 4, 2022, to $49.97 from $39.31, after Musk revealed his 9.2% stake. Musk’s takeover valued Twitter at $54.20 per share.

The case is Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System v. Musk et al, US District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 22-03026.

Musk has grand ambitions for Neuralink, saying it would facilitate speedy surgical insertions of its chip devices. (File)
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s brain-chip startup Neuralink said on Tuesday it has received approval from an independent review board to begin recruitment for the first human trial of its brain implant for paralysis patients.

Those with paralysis due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis may qualify for the study, it said, but did not reveal how many participants would be enrolled in the trial, which will take about six years to complete.

The study will use a robot to surgically place a brain-computer interface (BCI) implant in a region of the brain that controls the intention to move, Neuralink said, adding that its initial goal is to enable people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone.

The company, which had earlier hoped to receive approval to implant its device in 10 patients, was negotiating a lower number of patients with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) after the agency raised safety concerns, according to current and former employees. It is not known how many patients the FDA ultimately approved.

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Musk has grand ambitions for Neuralink, saying it would facilitate speedy surgical insertions of its chip devices to treat conditions like obesity, autism, depression and schizophrenia.

In May, the company said it had received clearance from the FDA for its first-in-human clinical trial, when it was already under federal scrutiny for its handling of animal testing.

Even if the BCI device proves to be safe for human use, it would still potentially take more than a decade for the startup to secure commercial use clearance for it, according to experts