Elon Musk has suggested that Neuralink could attempt to restore limited sight to visually impaired patients as early as 2026. 

The executive posted the update on social media platform X amid news of Neuralink’s first successful Telepathy implants outside the United States. 

Blindsight trials

In a response to a post from Neuralink’s official X account about its first Canadian patients, Musk wrote that the company is “Aiming to restore (limited) sight to the completely blind next year.” The update was well-received on social media, as the device would most likely provide notable quality of life improvements to patients. Neuralink’s current implant, Telepathy, is already changing lives today, and the same will likely be true for Blindsight.

This was not the first time that Musk has provided an update to Neuralink’s Blindsight trials. Earlier this year, Musk told the Qatar Economic Forum that the first human implantation of Blindsight could occur early 2026, potentially in the United Arab Emirates. Neuralink has explored collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi to perform the initial surgery. Blindsight has also received a “breakthrough device” designation from the US FDA, hinting at the implant’s development.

Blindsight’s potential

Musk has previously described Blindsight as Neuralink’s brain-computer interface (BCI) designed to restore vision. During Neuralink’s 2022 Show & Tell event, Musk stated that Blindsight would target the brain’s visual cortex, bypassing damaged eyes entirely to generate visual perception. This means that vision could be restored even for people who were born blind. 

“The first two applications we’re going to aim for in humans are restoring vision, and I think this is notable in that even if someone has never had vision ever, like they were born blind, we believe we can still restore vision. The visual part of the cortex is still there. Even if they’ve never seen before, we’re confident they could see,” Musk said.

Sweden’s Mediation Institute has formally ended its efforts to resolve the conflict between Tesla Sweden and trade union IF Metall. After nearly two years, the union’s strike has become the country’s longest labor dispute to date. 

Launched 677 days ago by the IF Metall union, the strike was intended to push Tesla Sweden into signing a collective agreement. Tesla Sweden, however, remained firm, maintaining that its working conditions are already better than union standards.

Mediation Institute withdraws

The state-run Mediation Institute, which had been involved early in the strike, confirmed this week that it was officially closing the case. The two parties have had several meetings, but neither side has been able to come to an agreement.

Director General Irene Wennemo described the effort as unprecedented in difficulty in a comment to Ekot. “We have tried in every possible way to get the parties to come closer to each other in a way that allows this conflict to end. But now we have come to the end of the road and have realized that it is just as good to end the case,” she told the Swedish outlet.

Union signals flexibility

The mediators noted in their final report that Tesla Sweden had limited authority in the talks, with key decisions appearing to rest with executives in the United States. The situation, they stated, created barriers to compromise that made the conflict “unlike anything else.” Tesla has maintained throughout that its Swedish workers already receive strong benefits and protections without the need for a formal collective agreement, as noted in a CarUp report.

IF Metall, for its part, has begun hinting that it was open to alternatives. This was highlighted by Union Chair Marie Nilsson, who noted that while the preferred outcome of the country’s longest strike in history is a signed agreement, “other alternative solutions” are now on the table. “You can do it in different ways. The easiest thing would be to sign a collective agreement. But when that is not possible, we have to find other alternative solutions as well, so we are open to discussion,” the union official stated.

Two Canadian men with spinal cord injuries have become the first patients outside the United States to receive Neuralink brain implants, Toronto’s University Health Network (UHN) confirmed this week. 

The operations mark Neuralink’s first international expansion of its clinical trial program.

A new step in Neuralink’s trials

The surgeries were performed at Toronto Western Hospital. The two patients, both in their early 30s from Ontario and Alberta, underwent the procedures on August 27 and September 3 under the leadership of neurosurgeon Dr. Andres Lozano. Both patients were implanted with Neuralink’s first device, Telepathy, which allows users to interact with tech devices using only their thoughts.

Lozano noted that the effects were visible almost immediately. “The first patient was able to control a cursor by just thinking within minutes. It is extremely rapid. The signals are decoded and the artificial intelligence reads the signals and then translates them into movement on the cursor,” he said. “They just think about it and it happens.” 

Both men were discharged the day after surgery, as noted in a CBC report.

Clinical trials, safety, and quality of life

The Canadian patients will be monitored for at least a year, with the research team permitted to enroll up to four additional participants with either spinal cord injuries or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). The trial will focus on safety and quality-of-life improvements, and doctors will be watching for potential side effects such as seizures, infections, or strokes.

Over the coming months, the patients are expected to advance from moving a cursor to typing on a virtual keyboard using only their thoughts. “It’s really as a preliminary step to see whether this should be scaled and rolled out to a larger population. The device right now is a cursor, but in the future you could drive a car, you could drive your wheelchair, you could drive a robot,” Lozano stated.