Elon Musk’s brain implant startup Neuralink Corp. forced an worker to work with monkeys carrying the herpes B virus under conditions that included the animals scratching her bare skin, in keeping with a lawsuit filed Friday in a California court.
Employee Lindsay Short said that when she transferred to the corporate’s Fremont, California, location in August 2022, she found “a work environment filled with blame, shame and impossible deadlines.” She said she was later fired after telling her supervisors she was pregnant.
Short sued the corporate for, amongst other things, retaliation, wrongful termination and discrimination based on her gender.
Neuralink didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
The startup is within the early stages of clinical testing for its device, which goals to revive functionality to paralyzed patients. An Arizona man, Noland Arbaugh, recently underwent surgery and was the primary human patient to have the device implanted. Arbaugh is a quadriplegic and might now successfully play video games using only his thoughts.
The company also has come under fire for past mistreatment of monkeys and other animals, including botched operations during monkey research on the University of California, Davis. The company has since moved monkey research to its own facilities.
Short said she was working with monkeys carrying the herpes B virus when she scratched through a glove. She accused the corporate of failing to offer adequate protective equipment for working with the monkeys. In one other incident, a monkey scratched her face after she was forced to perform a procedure she was unfamiliar with. When she insisted on medical treatment, her boss threatened “severe consequences” if it happened again, in keeping with the grievance.
In the lawsuit, Short also alleges that Neuralink reneged on a promise of flexible work hours to accommodate her family after which demoted her in May 2023, two months after a promotion.
The following month, she told Neuralink’s human resources department that she was pregnant. Short was fired the following day. The company cited performance issues as the explanation for the firing, the lawsuit says.
