FDA staff reviewing Musk's Neuralink were included in DOGE employee firings, sources say

Source: Reuters

Exclusive-FDA staff reviewing Musk’s Neuralink were included in DOGE employee firings, sources say

Rachael Levy and Marisa Taylor
Mon, February 17, 2025 at 6:26 PM EST 2 min read

(Reuters) - U.S. Food and Drug Administration employees reviewing Elon Musk’s brain implant company Neuralink were fired over the weekend as part of a broader purge of the federal workforce, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.

The cuts included about 20 people in the FDA’s office of neurological and physical medicine devices, several of whom worked on Neuralink, according to the two sources, who asked not to be identified because of fear of professional repercussions. That division includes reviewers overseeing clinical-trial applications by Neuralink and other companies making so-called brain-computer interface devices, the sources said.

Both sources said they did not believe the employees were specifically targeted because of their work on Neuralink's applications.

The loss of roughly 20 employees will hamper the agency’s ability to quickly and safely process medical device applications of all sorts, including Neuralink’s, according to the sources and outside experts.

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