A former employee at Elon Musk's brain-computer interface startup Neuralink is suing the company, alleging that she was forced to work with lab monkeys that carried Herpes — and even got scratched by one on her bare skin through a glove.
As Bloomberg reports, former Neuralink employee Lindsay Short also claims she was fired after informing her supervisors that she was pregnant.
All told, Short is accusing the company of retaliation, wrongful termination, and gender discrimination — all allegations that have already been made against Musk's other companies, including SpaceX. It's yet another sign that the mercurial CEO likes to crack the whip at his ventures, with a notable disregard for employee safety, discrimination, sexism, and more.
The lawsuit paints a troubling picture of what's going on behind closed doors at Neuralink. Short details encountering a "work environment fraught with blame, shame, and impossible deadlines," once she was transferred to the company's site in Fremont, California.
She claims she was scratched through a glove by a monkey that carried the Herpes B virus, and was never given adequate protective equipment to work with the animals.
According to the lawsuit, she was threatened with "severe repercussions" by her boss if she were to insist on medical treatment again.
Short was fired a day after informing her department she was pregnant. She had been promoted two months earlier.
Neuralink's use of lab monkeys has already been the subject of much controversy. Last year, Wired reported that as many as a dozen rhesus macaques suffered from a variety of terrifying symptoms after being implanted with Neuralink chips, including brain swelling, partial paralysis, and self-harming behavior, eventually leading to them being euthanized.
Musk has since denied the report, claiming the monkeys had been terminally ill without ever providing proof to back up his claims.
Neuralink has also come under investigation by the US Department of Transportation for illegally moving implants removed from the brains of monkeys that may have been contaminated with pathogens, including Herpes B and other hard-to-kill bacteria like Staphylococcus and Klebsiella.
Short's allegations are serious and not entirely surprising. It's far from the first time we've heard of gender discrimination at a Musk-run company, with Short's lawsuit being only the latest in a string of complaints.
Just last week, eight former SpaceX employees sued the company and its CEO, claiming they were wrongfully fired for raising concerns over rampant sexual harassment.
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