Tech billionaire Elon Musk says that the company Neuralink has successfully implanted one of the wireless brain chips her to a human for the first time.

The company’s goal, it says, is to “connect” human brains with computers, and it says it wants to help treat complex neurological conditions. Some competing companies have already implanted similar devices.

Elon Musk’s company was given permission to test the chip on humans by the FDA in May. This gave the ‘green light’ to start the six-year study, during which a robot is used to surgically place 64 flexible filaments, thinner than a human hair, into a part of the brain that controls ‘intention to move’, according to with Neuralink.

The company says these threads allow its “experimental implant” – which is powered by a battery that can be charged wirelessly – to record and wirelessly transmit brain signals to an app that decodes how the person intends to move .

In a post on X, his social media platform formerly known as Twitter, Elon Musk said Neuralink’s first product will be called “Telepathy”.

Telepathy, he said, would allow “controlling your phone or computer, and through them, almost any device, just by thinking. The initial users will be those who have lost the use of their limbs”, he continued. Referring to the late British scientist who suffered from motor neurone disease, he added: “Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a typewriter. That’s the goal”.

Elon Musk’s involvement raises Neuralink’s profile, but there are also some strong “rivals”, with more than two decades of work. Utah-based Blackrock Neurotech implanted the first of many brain-computer interfaces in 2004.

Founded by a co-founder of Neuralink, Precision Neuroscience also aims to help people with paralysis. And her implant looks like a very thin piece of tape that sits on the surface of the brain and can be implanted through a “cranial micro-slit,” which she says is a much simpler procedure.

Existing devices have also brought significant results. In two recent scientific studies in the US, implants were used to monitor brain activity when a person tried to speak, which could then be decoded to help them communicate.