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Neuralink Show & Tell Fall 2022 News Roundup [Live Coverage]

(Credit: Neuralink)

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Neuralink’s 2022 Show & Tell is about to begin. The event is supposed to update the public on Neuralink’s progress and attract talent to the company. 

Teslarati will be closely following the event. Please refresh this page for the latest coverage.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently posted about the event and hinted at an exciting update on Neuralink.

In the intro video of Neuralink’s Show and Tell event, Pager the monkey seems to be learning to type words with his mind.

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Elon Musk enters the stage and welcomes everyone to the event. Wasting no time at all, Musk dives into Neuralink’s Show and Tell, starting with the company’s goals. Neuralink’s goal is to make a generalized I/O interface for the brain that could help people with debilitating conditions.

Musk hints that some of the topics covered during the event will reach an esoteric level. He reaffirms that Neuralink is confident that its device will help people suffering with brain injuries along the way to bridging the gap between computers and the human brain.

“We are confident that this point we will succeed at solving many brain injury issues spine injury issues along the way,” he said.

Musk shows a video of Pager playing “Monkey Mind Pong.” The video was released about 18 months ago. The Tesla CEO emphasizes that Neuralink’s device is not outwardly obvious to others.

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Pager initially learned to play Pong with a joystick. Neuralink later took the joystick away and had Pager play Pong with his mind though Neuralink’s device.

Human Trials

Musk reminds the audience that going from prototype to production is difficult and has many challenges. Neuralink has been working hard to start human trials. The company has submitted all the papers needed to start human trials to the FDA. Musk estimates that the first Neuralink device could be inside the human brain in 5-6 months.

Elon Musk emphasizes that Neuralink treats its animal subjects with respect. The company does extensive benchmark tests before implanting a Neuralink device into an animal.

Another Neuralink monkey, Sake, is typing with his brain. Sake spelled out the Neuralink event’s welcome tag: “Welcome to show and tell.”

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Neuralink Upgradeability

Both Sake and Pager have successfully implanted with Neuralink’s upgraded device.

“Upgradeability is very important because our first production device will be much like an iPhone 1 and pretty sure you would not want an iPhone 1 stuck in your head if the iPhone 14 is available,” Elon Musk.

Neuralink Application

Elon Musk says that Neuralink can restore vision, even on someone who was born blind. The company is also confident that the Neuralink device can restore full functionality to a severed spinal cord.

Recruitment

“If you have expertise in creating advanced devices, like watches and computers, then your abilities will be of great use in solving these problems,” Musk said.

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Neuralink Implant and Surgical Robot

Elon Musk passes the baton to DJ, who has been at Neuralink since the beginning. DJ talks about creating a high bandwidth generalized interface to the brain. He talks about safety, scalability and access to brain regions, the three pillars to get high bandwidth generalized interface to the brain.

DJ talks about the Neuralink implant (the N1) with thin threads N1 implant is about the size of a quarter. It has 1,024 channels that are capable of recording and stimulating.

He also talks about Neuralink’s surgical robot (the R1 Robot) that will help implant the company’s device into the brain. Neuralink does a live demo of the R1 robot at work with dummy patient Alpha.

Neuralink has a double operating room (OR) in Austin. The company plans to establish its own clinic in the future.

“Neuralink’s been working closely with the FDA to get approval to launch its first clinical human trial in the US hopefully in the next 6 months,” noted DJ.

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Neuralink Software

Neuralink has been working on improving cursor speed and accuracy since 2021. The speed and accuracy has improved, but Neuralink is still working on improving it. The company is also working on a mouse and keyboard interfaces to work with Neuralink N1.

Neuralink is training monkeys to write so it can get rid of digital keyboards and increase the typing rate when patients use the N1 implant to write with their minds.

Neuralink N1 Charging

Neuralink has improved the battery of the N1 since its last event. The new charger is uses an Aluminum battery base with 6.78 MHz drive circuit for double the battery life.. Neuralink charges the N1 implant wirelessly.

Neuralink is working on a third generation charger with a bidirectional near field communication.

Neuralink N1 Development

N1 contains a small micro processor. Neuralink conducts hill tests on the N1. Testing became a bottleneck so the team created a new system, allowing it to rapidly test new hardware in the N1 implant, greatly accelerating its development.

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Neuralink has developed its own system to rigorously test its implant designs.

R1 Robot Development

Nueralink’s R1 robot will help neurosurgeons implant the N1 chip. As the company continues to improve the R1 robot, it will perform more of the surgery. Neuralink developer, Christine, explained that the R1 robot could make the N1 implant surgery more affordable in the future.

Neuralink Next Generation Application

Dan explains the Neuralink’s potential capability to restore eyesight. Neuralink inserted the N1 into the visual cortex of two monkeys named Code and Dash. By observing Code and Dash, Neuralink can record the receptive fields of their visual fields.

“Our goal will be to turn the lights on for someone who spent decades living in the dark,” said Dan.

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After Dan, Joey comes up to talk about Neuralink’s application for people with severed spinal cords. Neuralink has conducted tests showing that it can stimulate movement in animals through multiple implants: the N1 in the brain and implants in the spinal cord.

Elon Musk comes back on stage joined by the Neuralink team to answer questions.

Question Round

Elon Musk states that Neuralink does plan to provide some of its research and technology to research universities and hospitals after receiving FDA approval.

Musk says that Neuralink would consider open-sourcing its data sets. The company could publish them on its website.

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Neuralink is working on making the electrode of the N1 implant smaller to prevent scar tissue and inflammation response.

Elon Musk hints that the N1 chip might be able to detect health conditions or monitor people’s health status in the future.

Neuralink is focusing on improving the longevity of the N1 device’s threads at the moment. However, the company appears determined to continue improving the N1 implant with no end date in sight.

Neuralink monkeys adapt and learn to utilize the N1 chip fairly quickly.

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“Right now we’re just guessing at a lot about what’s going on in the brain. But if you have direct I/O, there’s no more guessing. What we will learn about the brain with such a device–in wide use–is many orders of magnitude than we currently understand,” Musk said, ending the Neuralink event on that note.

Below is the link to the livestream. 

Maria--aka "M"-- is an experienced writer and book editor. She's written about several topics including health, tech, and politics. As a book editor, she's worked with authors who write Sci-Fi, Romance, and Dark Fantasy. M loves hearing from TESLARATI readers. If you have any tips or article ideas, contact her at maria@teslarati.com or via X, @Writer_01001101.

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Elon Musk

Tesla to a $100T market cap? Elon Musk’s response may shock you

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There are a lot of Tesla bulls out there who have astronomical expectations for the company, especially as its arm of reach has gone well past automotive and energy and entered artificial intelligence and robotics.

However, some of the most bullish Tesla investors believe the company could become worth $100 trillion, and CEO Elon Musk does not believe that number is completely out of the question, even if it sounds almost ridiculous.

To put that number into perspective, the top ten most valuable companies in the world — NVIDIA, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, TSMC, Meta, Saudi Aramco, Broadcom, and Tesla — are worth roughly $26 trillion.

Will Tesla join the fold? Predicting a triple merger with SpaceX and xAI

Cathie Wood of ARK Invest believes the number is reasonable considering Tesla’s long-reaching industry ambitions:

“…in the world of AI, what do you have to have to win? You have to have proprietary data, and think about all the proprietary data he has, different kinds of proprietary data. Tesla, the language of the road; Neuralink, multiomics data; nobody else has that data. X, nobody else has that data either. I could see $100 trillion. I think it’s going to happen because of convergence. I think Tesla is the leading candidate [for $100 trillion] for the reason I just said.”

Musk said late last year that all of his companies seem to be “heading toward convergence,” and it’s started to come to fruition. Tesla invested in xAI, as revealed in its Q4 Earnings Shareholder Deck, and SpaceX recently acquired xAI, marking the first step in the potential for a massive umbrella of companies under Musk’s watch.

SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise

Now that it is happening, it seems Musk is even more enthusiastic about a massive valuation that would swell to nearly four-times the value of the top ten most valuable companies in the world currently, as he said on X, the idea of a $100 trillion valuation is “not impossible.”

Tesla is not just a car company. With its many projects, including the launch of Robotaxi, the progress of the Optimus robot, and its AI ambitions, it has the potential to continue gaining value at an accelerating rate.

Musk’s comments show his confidence in Tesla’s numerous projects, especially as some begin to mature and some head toward their initial stages.

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Elon Musk

Celebrating SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Tesla Roadster launch, seven years later (Op-Ed)

Seven years later, the question is no longer “What if this works?” It’s “How far does this go?”

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SpaceX's first Falcon Heavy launch also happened to be a strategic and successful test of Falcon upper stage coast capabilities. (SpaceX)

When Falcon Heavy lifted off in February 2018 with Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster as its payload, SpaceX was at a much different place. So was Tesla. It was unclear whether Falcon Heavy was feasible at all, and Tesla was in the depths of Model 3 production hell.

At the time, Tesla’s market capitalization hovered around $55–60 billion, an amount critics argued was already grossly overvalued. SpaceX, on the other hand, was an aggressive private launch provider known for taking risks that traditional aerospace companies avoided.

The Roadster launch was bold by design. Falcon Heavy’s maiden mission carried no paying payload, no government satellite, just a car drifting past Earth with David Bowie playing in the background. To many, it looked like a stunt. For Elon Musk and the SpaceX team, it was a bold statement: there should be some things in the world that simply inspire people.

Inspire it did, and seven years later, SpaceX and Tesla’s results speak for themselves.

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Credit: SpaceX

Today, Tesla is the world’s most valuable automaker, with a market capitalization of roughly $1.54 trillion. The Model Y has become the best-selling car in the world by volume for three consecutive years, a scenario that would have sounded insane in 2018. Tesla has also pushed autonomy to a point where its vehicles can navigate complex real-world environments using vision alone.

And then there is Optimus. What began as a literal man in a suit has evolved into a humanoid robot program that Musk now describes as potential Von Neumann machines: systems capable of building civilizations beyond Earth. Whether that vision takes decades or less, one thing is evident: Tesla is no longer just a car company. It is positioning itself at the intersection of AI, robotics, and manufacturing.

SpaceX’s trajectory has been just as dramatic.

The Falcon 9 has become the undisputed workhorse of the global launch industry, having completed more than 600 missions to date. Of those, SpaceX has successfully landed a Falcon booster more than 560 times. The Falcon 9 flies more often than all other active launch vehicles combined, routinely lifting off multiple times per week.

Falcon Heavy successfully clears the tower after its maiden launch, February 6, 2018. (Tom Cross)

Falcon 9 has ferried astronauts to and from the International Space Station via Crew Dragon, restored U.S. human spaceflight capability, and even stepped in to safely return NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams when circumstances demanded it.

Starlink, once a controversial idea, now dominates the satellite communications industry, providing broadband connectivity across the globe and reshaping how space-based networks are deployed. SpaceX itself, following its merger with xAI, is now valued at roughly $1.25 trillion and is widely expected to pursue what could become the largest IPO in history.

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And then there is Starship, Elon Musk’s fully reusable launch system designed not just to reach orbit, but to make humans multiplanetary. In 2018, the idea was still aspirational. Today, it is under active development, flight-tested in public view, and central to NASA’s future lunar plans.

In hindsight, Falcon Heavy’s maiden flight with Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster was never really about a car in space. It was a signal that SpaceX and Tesla were willing to think bigger, move faster, and accept risks others wouldn’t.

The Roadster is still out there, orbiting the Sun. Seven years later, the question is no longer “What if this works?” It’s “How far does this go?”

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Energy

Tesla launches Cybertruck vehicle-to-grid program in Texas

The initiative was announced by the official Tesla Energy account on social media platform X.

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has launched a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) program in Texas, allowing eligible Cybertruck owners to send energy back to the grid during high-demand events and receive compensation on their utility bills. 

The initiative, dubbed Powershare Grid Support, was announced by the official Tesla Energy account on social media platform X.

Texas’ Cybertruck V2G program

In its post on X, Tesla Energy confirmed that vehicle-to-grid functionality is “coming soon,” starting with select Texas markets. Under the new Powershare Grid Support program, owners of the Cybertruck equipped with Powershare home backup hardware can opt in through the Tesla app and participate in short-notice grid stress events.

During these events, the Cybertruck automatically discharges excess energy back to the grid, supporting local utilities such as CenterPoint Energy and Oncor. In return, participants receive compensation in the form of bill credits. Tesla noted that the program is currently invitation-only as part of an early adopter rollout.

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The launch builds on the Cybertruck’s existing Powershare capability, which allows the vehicle to provide up to 11.5 kW of power for home backup. Tesla added that the program is expected to expand to California next, with eligibility tied to utilities such as PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E.

Powershare Grid Support

To participate in Texas, Cybertruck owners must live in areas served by CenterPoint Energy or Oncor, have Powershare equipment installed, enroll in the Tesla Electric Drive plan, and opt in through the Tesla app. Once enrolled, vehicles would be able to contribute power during high-demand events, helping stabilize the grid.

Tesla noted that events may occur with little notice, so participants are encouraged to keep their Cybertrucks plugged in when at home and to manage their discharge limits based on personal needs. Compensation varies depending on the electricity plan, similar to how Powerwall owners in some regions have earned substantial credits by participating in Virtual Power Plant (VPP) programs.

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