How is the first person to get Elon Musk’s brain chip now?

Noland Arbaugh (29 years old), a patient who has been paralyzed for 8 years and is the first person to receive Neuralink’s chip, revealed that the device has changed his life after 18 months of surgery.

Neuralink brain chip helped Arbaugh play games again. Photo: Bloomberg .

In a recent interview with Fortune , Noland Arbaugh, the first patient to receive Neuralink’s brain chip, said the device has helped him do more for himself.

“I feel like I have potential again. I guess I always had potential, but now I’m figuring out how to realize that potential in a meaningful way. It’s very different,” Arbaugh said.

Arbaugh shared that he uses this device about 10 hours a day to control the computer and can study, read and play games.

The 29-year-old patient has also enrolled in classes at a community college in Arizona and is looking to start his own business, through paid professional speaking engagements and live speaking engagements.

Noland Arbaugh (29 years old) is the first patient to receive a brain-computer interface, also known as BCI, from Neuralink, the brain chip startup of billionaire Elon Musk . In 2024, the patient shared that when he was paralyzed for 8 years, he gave up playing chess. But Neuralink helped him fulfill this wish and play continuously for 8 hours.

“The surgery wasn’t perfect. We had some issues during the surgery. I don’t want people to think this is the end, because there’s still a lot of work to do. But it changed my life,” Arbaugh said.

In theory, a BCI is a system that decodes brain signals and translates them into commands for external technology. If the system works, patients with severe degenerative diseases like polio could text or browse social media with their minds.