Unlike Elon Musk's brain-computer interface, Synchron's doesn't require open-skull surgery, and it has an OpenAI chatbot baked in.

Elon Musk has officially announced he’s stepping down as a U.S. special government employee and the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOGE.  The move follows Musk’s cooling relationship with the Trump administration and slumping Tesla sales tied to his political advocacy. Despite his announced departure, Musk gave a shout-out to President Trump for the chance to tackle government waste, and he insisted that DOGE’s mission isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Since launching, the organization has already slashed budgets across agencies, cut jobs, shut down departments, and stirred up plenty of controversy along the way. Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha unpack who else is departing DOGE, and why Silicon Valley’s relationship with politics is entering, as Kirsten put it, the “find out” stage. Listen to the full episode for more of the week’s tech headlines, including: GameStop bought $500 million of bitcoin, and the move is giving us 2021 déjà vu Neuralink’s $600 million raise, valuing Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface startup at $9 billion The New York Times and Amazon’s landmark AI licensing deal and what it signals for how editorial content powers generative AI Nvidia’s tale of two earnings, and why the forecast is not as bleak as CEO Jensen Huang makes it seem Equity will be back next week, so don’t miss it! Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday.  Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes here.

Published May 31, 2025 6:00am EDT close Brain implant enables ALS patient to communicate using AI ALS patient communicates with the world using only his thoughts. Imagine losing your ability to speak or move, yet still having so much to say. For Brad G. Smith, this became his reality after being diagnosed with ALS, a rare and progressive disease that attacks the nerves controlling voluntary muscle movement. But thanks to a groundbreaking Neuralink brain implant, Smith is now able to communicate with the world using only his thoughts. ALS patient Brad G. Smith and his family. (Bradford G. Smith/X)Life before NeuralinkBefore receiving the Neuralink implant, Smith relied on eye-tracking technology to communicate. While impressive, it came with major limitations. "It is a miracle of technology, but it is frustrating. It works best in dark rooms, so I was basically Batman. I was stuck in a dark room," Smith shared in a recent post on X. Bright environments would disrupt the system, making communication slow and sometimes impossible. Now, Smith says, "Neuralink lets me go outside and ignore lighting changes."PARALYZED MAN WITH ALS IS THIRD TO RECEIVE NEURALINK IMPLANT, CAN TYPE WITH BRAIN ALS patient Brad G. Smith. (Bradford G. Smith/X)How the Neuralink brain implant worksSmith is the first non-verbal person and only the third individual worldwide to receive the Neuralink Brain-Computer Interface (BCI). The device, about as thick as five stacked coins, sits in his skull and connects to the motor cortex-the part of the brain that controls movement.Tiny wires, thinner than human hair, extend into Smith's brain. These pick up signals from his neurons and transmit them wirelessly to his MacBook Pro. The computer then decodes these signals, allowing Smith to move a cursor on the screen with his thoughts alone.As Smith explains, "The Neuralink implant embedded in my brain contains 1024 electrodes that capture neuron firings every 15 milliseconds generating a vast amount of data. Artificial intelligence processes this data on a connected MacBook Pro to decode my intended movements in real time to move the cursor on my screen. Neuralink does not read my deepest thoughts or words I think about. It just reads how I wanna move and moves the cursor where I want."WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)? Neuralink brain implant. (Bradford G. Smith/X)Training the brain-computer connectionLearning to use the system took some trial and error. At first, the team tried mapping Smith's hand movements to the cursor, but it didn't work well. After more research, they discovered that signals related to his tongue were the most effective for cursor movement, and clenching his jaw worked best for clicking. "I am not actively thinking about my tongue, just like you don't think about your wrist when you move a mouse. I have done a lot of cursor movements in my life. I think my brain has switched over to subconscious control quickly so I just think about moving the cursor," Smith said. ALS patient Brad G. Smith with his wife and child. (Bradford G. Smith/X)Everyday life: Communication, play, and problem-solvingThe Neuralink implant has given Smith new ways to interact with his family and the world. He can now play games like Mario Kart with his children and communicate more quickly than before. The system includes a virtual keyboard and shortcuts for common actions, making tasks like copying, pasting and navigating web pages much easier.Smith also worked with Neuralink engineers to develop a "parking spot" feature for the cursor. "Sometimes you just wanna park the cursor and watch a video. When it is in the parking spot, I can watch a show or take a nap without worrying about the cursor," he explained. ALS patient Brad G. Smith and his child. (Bradford G. Smith/X)AI assistance: Keeping up with conversationTo speed up communication even more, Smith uses Grok, Elon Musk's AI chatbot. Grok helps him write responses and even suggests witty replies. "We have created a chat app that uses AI to listen to the conversation and gives me options to say in response. It uses Grok 3 and an AI clone of my old voice to generate options for me to say. It is not perfect, but it keeps me in the conversation and it comes up with some great ideas," Smith shared. One example? When a friend needed a gift idea for his girlfriend who loves horses, the AI suggested a bouquet of carrots. ALS patient Brad G. Smith and his family. (Bradford G. Smith/X)The human side: Family, faith and perspectiveSmith's journey has been shaped by more than just technology. He credits his wife, Tiffany, as his "best caregiver I could ever imagine," and recognizes the support of his kids, friends and family. Despite the challenges of ALS, Smith finds meaning and hope in his faith. "I have not always understood why God afflicted me with ALS but with time I am learning to trust his plan for me. I'm a better man because of ALS. I'm a better disciple of Jesus Christ because of ALS. I'm closer to my amazing wife, literally and figuratively, because of ALS," he said. ALS patient Brad G. Smith and his family. (Bradford G. Smith/X)Looking ahead: What does this mean for others?Neuralink's technology is still in its early stages, but Smith's experience is already making waves. The company recently received a "breakthrough" designation from the Food and Drug Administration for its brain implant device, which hopes to help people with severe speech impairments caused by ALS, stroke, spinal cord injury and other neurological conditions.Neuro-ethicists are watching closely, as the merging of brain implants and AI raises important questions about privacy, autonomy and the future of human communication. ALS patient Brad G. Smith and his family. (Bradford G. Smith/X)Kurt's key takeawaysSmith's story is about resilience, creativity and the power of technology to restore something as fundamental as the ability to communicate. As Smith puts it,CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPIf you or a family member lost the ability to speak or move, would you consider a brain implant that lets you communicate with your thoughts? Let us know by writing to us atCyberguy.com/ContactFor more of my tech tips and security alerts, subscribe to my free CyberGuy Report Newsletter by heading to Cyberguy.com/NewsletterAsk Kurt a question or let us know what stories you'd like us to cover.Follow Kurt on his social channels:Answers to the most-asked CyberGuy questions:New from Kurt:Copyright 2025 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.   Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on "FOX & Friends." Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.

Lousy ROI Elon Musk counts the cost of his four-month blitz through US government Term at DOGE did serious damage to his brands, only achieved a fraction of hoped-for savings. Joe Miller and Alex Rogers, Financial Times – May 30, 2025 9:28 am | 59 Elon Musk wields a chainsaw at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February to illustrate his aim to cut government waste Credit: Jose Luis Magana/AP Elon Musk wields a chainsaw at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February to illustrate his aim to cut government waste Credit: Jose Luis Magana/AP Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Elon Musk’s four-month blitz through the US government briefly made him Washington’s most powerful businessman since the Gilded Age. But it has done little for his reputation or that of his companies. Musk this week formally abandoned his role as the head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), which has failed to find even a fraction of the $2 trillion in savings he originally pledged. On Thursday, Donald Trump lamented his departure but said Musk “will always be with us, helping all the way.” Yet the billionaire will be left calculating the cost of his involvement with Trump and the meagre return on his $250 million investment in the US president’s election campaign. “I appreciate the fact that Mr Musk put what was good for the country ahead of what was good for his own bottom line,” Tom Cole, the Republican chair of the House Appropriations Committee, told the Financial Times. After Doge was announced, a majority of American voters believed Musk would use the body to “enrich himself and undermine his business rivals,” according to a survey, instead of streamlining the government. Progressive groups warned that he would be “rigging federal procurement for billionaires and their pals” and cut regulations that govern his companies Tesla and SpaceX. Democratic lawmakers said Doge was a “cover-up” of a more sinister, self-serving exercise by the world’s richest person. Early moves by the Trump administration suggested Musk might get value for money. A lawsuit brought by the Biden administration against SpaceX over its hiring practices was dropped in February, and regulators probing his brain-implant company Neuralink were dismissed. Musk’s satellite Internet business Starlink was touted by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick as a potential beneficiary of a $42 billion rural broadband scheme. An executive order calling for the establishment of a multibillion-dollar Iron Dome defense system in the US looked set to benefit Musk, due to SpaceX’s dominance in rocket launches. The gutting of various watchdogs across government also benefited Musk’s businesses, while a number of large US companies rushed to ink deals with Starlink or increase their advertising spending on X. Starlink also signed agreements to operate in India, Pakistan, and Vietnam, among other countries it has long wished to expand into. But while Doge took a scythe to various causes loathed by Musk, most notably international aid spending and government contracts purportedly linked to diversity initiatives or “woke” research, it also caused severe blowback to the billionaire’s businesses, particularly Tesla. At one point during his Doge tenure, Tesla’s stock had fallen 45 percent from its highest point last year, and reports emerged that the company’s board of directors had sought to replace Musk as chief executive. The 53-year-old’s personal wealth dropped by tens of billions of dollars, while his dealerships were torched and death threats poured in. Some of the brand damage to Tesla, until recently Musk’s primary source of wealth, could be permanent. “Eighty percent of Teslas in the US were sold in blue zip codes,” a former senior employee said. “Obviously that constituency has been deeply offended.” Starlink lost lucrative contracts in Canada and Mexico due to Musk’s political activities, while X lost 11 million users in Europe alone. Probes of Tesla and SpaceX by government regulators also continued apace, while the Trump administration pressed ahead with plans to abolish tax credits for electric vehicles and waged a trade war vehemently opposed by Musk that threatened to further damage car sales. In the political arena, few people were cheered by Doge’s work. Democrats were outraged by the gutting of foreign aid and by Musk’s 20-something acolytes gaining access to the Treasury’s payment system, along with the ousting of thousands of federal workers. Republicans looked askance at attempts to target defense spending. And true budget hawks were bitter that Musk could only cut a few billion dollars. Bill Gates even accused Musk of “killing the world’s poorest children” through his actions at Doge. Musk, so used to getting his way at his businesses, struggled for control. At various points in his tenure he took on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Transport Secretary Sean Duffy, and trade tsar Peter Navarro, while clashing with several other senior officials. Far from being laser-focused on eliminating waste, Musk’s foray into government was a “revenge tour” against a bureaucracy the billionaire had come to see as the enemy of innovation, a former senior colleague of Musk’s said, highlighting the entrepreneur’s frustration with COVID-19 regulations in California, his perceived snub by the Biden administration, and his anger over his daughter’s gender transition. Trump’s AI and crypto tsar, David Sacks, an influential political voice in the tech world, “whipped [Musk] up into a very, very far-right kind of mindset,” the person added, to the extent that was “going to help this administration in crushing the ‘woke’ agenda.” Neither Musk nor Sacks responded to requests for comment. Musk, who claimed Doge only acted in an “advisory role,” this week expressed frustration at it being used as a “whipping boy” for unpopular cuts decided by the White House and cabinet secretaries. “Trump, I think, was very savvy and allowed Doge to kind of take all those headlines for a traditional political scapegoat,” said Sahil Lavingia, head of a commerce start-up who worked for Doge until earlier this month. Musk, he added, might also have been keen to take credit for the gutting of USAID and other moves but ultimately garnered unwanted attention. “If you were truly evil, [you] would just be more quiet,” said Lavingia, who joined the initiative in order to streamline processes within government. “You would do the evil stuff quietly.” The noise surrounding Musk, whose ability to dominate news cycles with a single post on his social media site X rivaled Trump’s own hold on the headlines, also frustrated the administration. This week, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller took to X to indirectly rebut the billionaire’s criticism of Trump’s signature tax bill, which he had lambasted for failing to cut the deficit or codify Doge’s cuts. Once almost synonymous with Musk, Doge is now being melded into the rest of government. In a briefing on Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that following Musk’s departure, cabinet secretaries would “continue to work with the respective Doge employees who have onboarded as political appointees at all of these agencies.” She added: “The Doge leaders are each and every member of the President’s Cabinet and the President himself.” Doge’s aims have also become decidedly more quotidian. Tom Krause, a Musk ally who joined Doge and was installed at Treasury, briefed congressional staff this week on improvements to the IRS’s application program interfaces and customer service, according to a person familiar with the matter. Other Doge staffers are doing audits of IT contracts—work Lavingia compares with that done by McKinsey consultants. Freed from the constraints of being a government employee, Musk is increasingly threatening to become a thorn in Trump’s side. Soon after his Doge departure was announced, he again criticized the White House, this time over its plan to cancel clean energy tax credits. “Teddy Roosevelt had that great adage: ‘speak softly but carry a big stick’,” Fred Thiel, the chief executive of Bitcoin mining company MARA Holdings, told the FT. “Maybe Elon’s approach was a little bit different.” © 2025 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way. Joe Miller and Alex Rogers, Financial Times Joe Miller and Alex Rogers, Financial Times 59 Comments

Valve co-founder and CEO Gabe Newell’s new startup plans to launch brain-computer interface chips (BCIs) as soon as 2025.Newell’s company, Valve, owns the world’s largest game distribution platform, Steam, and has developed numerous acclaimed game series like Half Life, Portal, and Counter-Strike.But don’t expect exciting gaming tie-ins from the new chips—at least not right now. Rather than using your brain to play much-rumored titles like Valve's Half-Life 3, the new chips from Starfish Technologies seem earmarked for treating neurological disorders like Parkinson’s, much like Elon Musk’s Neuralink.The company hopes the chips will one day form part of “minimally invasive, distributed neural interfaces” that have simultaneous access to multiple brain regions, enabling the “recording and stimulation of neural activity with a level of precision vastly exceeding what is possible with currently available systems.”In the announcement, the startup said the chips are planned to emphasize “minimal size and low power,” with the “intent of future integration into a fully wireless, battery-free implant.” The startup thinks these chips could one day prove useful for treating disorders where “interactions between brain regions may be misregulated,” requiring “reading and writing to multiple connected parts of the brain at once” to treat. Recommended by Our EditorsWhile the new startup may be focusing on medical use cases, some of the world's largest gaming companies, including Valve itself, have been openly discussing how brain-computer interface chips could help improve in-game experiences.In a 2019 talk given at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), noted by The Verge, a Valve executive discussed how these types of brain interfaces could be used in the future by pro gamers to reduce their reaction times, or even to adapt gameplay in real-time based on players’ brain activity. For example, creating more enemies for a relaxed player, or fewer for a stressed player.Though other gaming giants have been more tight-lipped about their brain interface aspirations, we've seen huge firms like Sony and Chinese tech giant Tencent file patents referencing brainwave-based controls. Meanwhile, plenty of examples have already emerged of disabled gamers using tools like Elon Musk's Neuralink to play mainstream games like Counter-Strike. Meanwhile, Apple is currently testing support for brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS, in partnership with Brooklyn-based startup Synchron, using a synthetic vein implanted in the brain’s motor cortex. Synchron's tech, though not without technical issues, has allowed victims of degenerative diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) to enjoy Apple devices.

Valve co-founder and CEO Gabe Newell, the company behind Half-Life and DOTA 2 and Counter-Strike and preeminent PC game distribution platform Steam, has long toyed with the idea that your brain should be more connected to your PC. It began over a decade ago with in-house psychologists studying people’s biological responses to video games; Valve once considered earlobe monitors for its first VR headset. The company publicly explored the idea of brain-computer interfaces for gaming at GDC in 2019.But Newell decided to spin off the idea. That same year, he quietly incorporated a new brain-computer interface startup, Starfish Neuroscience — which has now revealed plans to produce its very first brain chip later this year.Starfish’s first blog post, spotted by Valve watcher Brad Lynch, makes it clear we’re not talking about a complete implant yet. This bit is the custom “electrophysiology” chip designed to record brain activity (like how Neuralink can “read your mind” so patients can interact with computers) and stimulate the brain (for disease therapy), but Starfish isn’t claiming it’s already built the systems to power it or the bits to stick it into a person’s head.“We anticipate our first chips arriving in late 2025 and we are interested in finding collaborators for whom such a chip would open new and exciting avenues,” writes Starfish neuroengineer Nate Cermak (bolding theirs), suggesting that Starfish might wind up partnering with other companies for wireless power or even the final brain implant.But the goal, writes Starfish, is a smaller and less invasive implant than the competition, one that can “enable simultaneous access to multiple brain regions” instead of just one site, and one that doesn’t require a battery. Using just 1.1 milliwatts during “normal recording,” Starfish says it can work with wireless power transmission instead.Here’s the chip’s current spec sheet:Low power: 1.1 mW total power consumption during normal recording Physically small: 2 x 4mm (0.3mm pitch BGA) Capable of both recording (spikes and LFP) & stimulation (biphasic pulses) 32 electrode sites, 16 simultaneous recording channels at 18.75kHz 1 current source for stimulating on arbitrary pairs of electrodes Onboard impedance monitoring and stim voltage transient measurement Digital onboard data processing and spike detection allows the device to operate via low-bandwidth wireless interfaces. Fabricated in TSMC 55nm processNeuralink’s N1, for comparison, has 1,024 electrodes across its 64 brain-implanted threads, a chip that consumed around 6 milliwatts as of 2019, a battery that periodically needs wireless charging, and the full implant (again, not just the chip) is around 23mm wide and 8mm thick. The Elon Musk-led company has reportedly already implanted it in three humans; while some of the threads did detach from the first patient’s brain, he still has functionality and has been giving interviews.Starfish says it could be important to connect to multiple parts of the brain simultaneously, instead of just one region, to address issues like Parkinson’s disease. “there is increasing evidence that a number of neurological disorders involve circuit-level dysfunction, in which the interactions between brain regions may be misregulated,” Cermak writes.In addition to multiple simultaneous brain implants, the company’s updated website says it’s working on a “precision hyperthermia device” to destroy tumors with targeted heat, and a brain-reading, robotically guided transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) system for addressing neurological conditions like bipolar disorder and depression.In case you’re wondering how any of this might make its way back to gaming, I’ll leave you with Valve’s talk from GDC 2019 about brain-computer interfaces.See More:

TNW Backstage returns this week to explore one of tech’s most fascinating frontiers: brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). The capabilities of these neural devices are rapidly expanding. They’ve been implanted in skulls and worn as headbands. They’ve measured focus, treated Parkinson’s disease, and enabled paralysed people to control computers with their minds. A range of research labs and tech firms are developing BCIs. Yet the spotlight has been dominated by one company: Elon Musk’s Neuralink. The startup has put brain implants in monkeys so they can play Pong with their minds. Musk also has big plans for humans, from giving us “superpowers” to downloading our memories. But shockingly, not everyone is keen on the idea of Elon controlling their brains. Thankfully, there are other options. One of them comes from Dutch healthtech company MindAffect. The company uses BCIs primarily for hearing and visual tests. Worn as headbands, the devices analyse the brain’s responses to stimulation, which reveals what the user saw or heard. It’s completely non-invasive, affordable, and requires little staff support. MindAffect’s CEO, Jennifer Goodall, discusses the system on this week’s episode of TNW Backstage. We revisit her session from TNW Conference 2024 and discuss the healthtech trends shaping this year’s event. You can listen to the show on Spotify, at our dedicated website, or via the media player at the bottom of this article. Once you’re done, check out our previous episodes of the podcast, which goes behind the scenes of TNW Conference and the tech shaping our world. In our debut show, we explored the data security landscape — and Meta’s controversial “pay or consent” model — with Ron de Jesus, the world’s first Field Chief Privacy Officer. In our second episode, comedy content creator Derek Mitchell and TNW co-founder Boris discussed the value of humour in tech businesses. To celebrate the podcast’s launch, we’re also offering an exclusive discount on tickets for TNW Conference, which takes place in Amsterdam on June 19 and 20. You’ll find the offer hidden in each episode of TNW Backstage. Thanks for reading — and now, for listening too. Story by Thomas Macaulay Managing editor Thomas is the managing editor of TNW. He leads our coverage of European tech and oversees our talented team of writers. Away from work, he e (show all) Thomas is the managing editor of TNW. He leads our coverage of European tech and oversees our talented team of writers. Away from work, he enjoys playing chess (badly) and the guitar (even worse). Get the TNW newsletter Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week. Also tagged with