US Lawmakers Ask SEC to Launch Fraud Investigation Into Elon Musk

Federal regulators are being pushed to investigate whether Elon Musk deceived investors in his brain-chip startup Neuralink by omitting details about the gruesome deaths of at least a dozen animals who were surgically fitted with its implants. Four members of the US House of Representatives today alleged that Musk issued false statements in September regarding the deaths of 12 macaque monkeys, the subjects of experiments at a primate center in California between 2018 and 2020, according to a letter obtained by WIRED. The lawmakers have urged Gary Gensler, head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), to initiate a probe into whether Musk committed securities fraud by glossing over the lethal aspects of Neuralink's tests--a potential violation, they claim, of an SEC rule designed to shield investors from material omissions and misstatements linked with the purchase or sale of a security. Musk, in September, claimed in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that no animal test subjects died as "a result of a Neuralink implant," adding that the company strove early on to "minimize risk to healthy monkeys," choosing only those who were "close to death already." Musk knows this statement is false," the lawmakers told Gensler, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker turned Wall Street sheriff.