--- title: "After Accident With First Patient, Neuralink Seeks Volunteer for Second Implant" description: "Neuralink cofounder Elon Musk is now seeking a second volunteer to receive the company's next experimental brain implant." date: "2024-05-18" modified: "2024-05-18" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/neuralink-seeks-second-volunteer" categories: - "Brain" - "Health & Medicine" - "Neuroscience and Brain" tags: - "brain computer interfaces" - "elon musk" - "health" - "neuralink" --- # After Accident With First Patient, Neuralink Seeks Volunteer for Second Implant ![Neuralink cofounder Elon Musk is now seeking a second volunteer to receive the company's next experimental brain implant.]() *Elon Musk, owner of Tesla and the X (formerly Twitter) platform, is drinking water while attending a symposium on fighting antisemitism titled 'Never Again : Lip Service or Deep Conversation' in Krakow, Poland on January 22nd, 2024. Musk, who was invited to Poland by the European Jewish Association (EJA) has visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp earlier that day, ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. (Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto) \Image: Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images\* Things haven't gone entirely according to plan with Neuralink's first human patient: as the [company conceded]() after questions from the *Wall Street Journal*, wires inside the patient's brain appear to have come loose, [degrading the quality of implant's signal](). This wasn't entirely unforeseen. Doctors had [previously warned]() about danger to Neuralink's test patients due to the company's lack of transparency, and it even turned out that [Neuralink and federal regulators were aware]() of the specific risk of the threads pulling out before going ahead with the surgery. But, of course, the company proceeded anyway — even telling its first patient, a paralyzed man named Noland Arbaugh, [not to worry]() about the [gruesome fates]() of certain Neuralink test monkeys. Now, it's in the context of that distinctly move-fast-and-break things approach to neurological hardware that Neuralink cofounder and chief hype man Elon Musk is now seeking a second volunteer to receive the company's next experimental brain implant. "Neuralink is accepting applications for the second participant," Musk [wrote on X-formerly-Twitter](), which he also now owns. "This is our Telepathy cybernetic brain implant that allows you to control your phone and computer just by thinking." Bombastic as those claims sound, from what Arbaugh has said since coming forward, they do seem to be mostly true — at least for now. Arbaugh was [paralyzed in a diving accident in 2016]() and afterward could only interact with technology using his voice and a stylus in his mouth. Until he got his Neuralink implant, that is, which he says gives him such dextrous control over digital interfaces that he's used it to play games including [Mario Kart]() and [Civilization VI](). "I didn’t have anything to wake up for in the morning, and this has changed that for me," Arbaugh [told *Good Morning America*]() on Friday. "I was just very happy that I would be a part of something that I believe is so monumental. This is the next step forward of helping people with paralysis." It hasn't always been a smooth ride, though. After he started to lose functionality as the threads came loose in his brain, Arbaugh told the program, he "cried afterwards." "It was very, very hard to give up all of the amazing things that I was able to do," he added. Neuralink has subsequently tweaked its algorithm to give Arbaugh some functionality back, though his long-term prospects with the chip remain unclear. However, Arbaugh remains undeterred. "I’d want to upgrade," he [told *Bloomberg* this week](). "Hopefully, they’ll put me on the short list." **More on Neuralink:** [*Autopsy Found That Neuralink Implant "Ruptured" Monkey's Brain*]() ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()