One of Elon Musk's old pals is calling out the billionaire's power hunger and egotism.

In a lengthy essay cross-posted on Facebook and LinkedIn, Philip Low, the founder of the brain-computer interface (BCI) company NeuroVigil, insisted that despite Musk's apparent Sieg Heil and subsequent Holocaust jokes, his former friend and business partner of 14 years "is not a Nazi, per se."

If anything, though, his explanation somehow sounds even more sinister.

"Nazis believed that an entire race was above everyone else," Low wrote. "Elon believes he is above everyone else."

"Everything Elon does is about acquiring and consolidating power," he continued. "That is why he likes far right parties, because they are easier to control."

Throughout the meandering post, the tech founder and erstwhile Musk confidante made a number of bold claims, including that one of Musk's exes came on to him and that the multi-hyphenate business owner — who invested in Low's NeuroVigil company in 2015 and still owns a small amount of stock in it — started Neuralink in 2016 as an attempt to compete with him.

"His lust for power is also why he did xAI and Neuralink, to attempt to compete with OpenAI and NeuroVigil, respectively, despite being affiliated with them," the tech founder wrote. "Unlike Tesla and Twitter, he was unable to conquer those companies and tried to create rivals."

To be clear, Low's insistence that Musk started Neuralink to compete with NeuroVigil is somewhat fuzzy.

For one, their approaches to BCI are vastly different. Unlike Neuralink, which involves a coin-sized chip being placed inside the skull and attached to the brain, NeuroVigil is entirely non-invasive and reads brainwaves from the outside while users are asleep to monitor their brain activity and, apparently, help diagnose medical conditions.

The way Low presents the timeline of his falling out with Musk is also pretty murky.

As the NeuroVigil founder correctly noted in his post, Musk was terminated with cause from NeuroVigil's board in late 2021. According to Low, that firing occurred after the billionaire essentially tried to tank the company's stock by returning his holdings instead of selling them outright.

"I fired him with cause in December 2021 when he tried to undermine NV," Low wrote. "It is ironic that years later, he clearly tried to undermine Twitter before buying it."

Though there's weight to the argument that Musk tried to "undermine" Twitter before buying it, that didn't happen "years later" — his purchase began just a few months later in April 2022, and was finalized that October, which was less than a year after Low fired him from the NeuroVigil board.

Still, Low's overall assessment of his former friend and business partner is compelling — even if there may be too many emotions tied up in their falling out.

More on Musk friendships: Trump Gives Elon Musk Access to All Unclassified Data in the US Government


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