Elon Musk’s Neuralink is hiring to ramp up manufacturing for 'Fitbit in your skull'

Neuralink, which company received Food and Drug Administration clearance in May 2023 to launch human trials, has so far only implanted the device in two patients

Elon Musk's Neuralink brain implant company aims to employ more techinicans to "boost production" of its "Fitbit in your skull."

The billionaire has previously stated Neuralink's technology would help people with neurological disorders and eventually allow humans to send messages or play games using only their thoughts. The company, which received Food and Drug Administration clearance in May 2023 to launch human trials, has so far only implanted the device in two patients.

The coin-sized chip is a brain-computer interface (BCI) and is implanted under the skull where 64 neural threads are attached to the motor cortex. The device then decodes the desired movement of the person's brain and translates it into computer commands. One patient had issues with wires in the implant coming loose weeks after the surgery earlier this year.

This hasn't stopped the tech mogul, who has labelled the tech as like having a "Fitbit in your skull", as the company is on a hiring spree. The roles will help "boost production" and "will be instrumental in ramping production to accelerate progress towards our goal of restoring autonomy to those with unmet medical needs", according to the company's website.

The technicians would be based in Texas and paid £17.50 an hour to produce brain implants and accessories and required to work "extended hours and weekends, as needed." Meanwhile techinicans in California would be paid between £22 and £35 an hour to manufacture the R1 surgical robot, which is designed to fully automate Neuralink's brain-computer interface.

Musk's company filed construction plans for a £12.7 million 112,000-square-foot facility outside Austin in July this year, according to public records. On Wednesday, it had recieved approval to launch its first crinical trial in Canada for the brain chimp start-up to help paralysed people use digital devices by thinking.

Neuralink posted on its website: "We've received approval from Health Canada to begin recruitment for our first clinical trial in Canada! The CAN-PRIME Study – an investigational medical device trial for our fully-implantable, wireless brain-computer interface (BCI) – aims to evaluate the safety of our implant and surgical robot and assess the initial functionality of our BCI for enabling people with quadriplegia to control external devices with their thoughts.

"This study involves placing a small, cosmetically invisible implant in a part of the brain that plans movements. The device is designed to interpret a person’s neural activity, so they can operate a computer or smartphone by simply intending to move – no wires or physical movement are required.

"This research may help us find safer, more effective ways to implant and use our BCI to potentially restore and enhance computer control and other capabilities. If you have limited or no ability to use both hands due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), you may qualify for the CAN-PRIME Study."