Elon Musk says he could have a computer chip in his brain right now

(Getty Images for Heidi Klum)

Elon Musk says he could be wearing one of his own Neuralink brain-computer interfaces right now.

The billionaire, who has largely been in the news in recent weeks because of his takeover of Twitter, hosted a “show and tell” at Neuralink this week, one of the other companies that he owns.

Neuralink is working to create computer chips that can be inserted into people’s brains and allow them to communicate with electronic devices.

It already claims to have had success with trials in monkeys and is now moving towards humans. Mr Musk has claimed that the technology is ready and that the company is simply waiting for regulatory approval to launch the trials, in the next six months.

He also pledged to get one of the brain implants himself as they become available. And in fact, he noted, the undetectable nature of the devices means that he could be wearing one right now.

“In fact, in one of these demos, I will,” he said, suggesting that he could secretly wear one in a future event.

He confirmed the remark to Ashlee Vance, a Bloomberg reporter and author of a biography on Mr Musk, on Twitter. When Mr Vance wrote the remarks, he replied only writing “yup”.

Even before those remarks, numerous people on Twitter have been examining images of Mr Musk and suggesting that they show that he is already using such a chip. There is no indication that he has done so, however, and Mr Musk explicitly said that the trials would include the “first human” to wear the device.

Neuralink will first use the chip to connect to certain parts of the brain, but eventually hopes to be able to translate impulses from the whole brain, he said. “As miraculous as it may sound, we’re confident it is possible to restore full body functionality to someone who has a severed spinal cord,” Mr Musk said during the event.