How Elon Musk’s Neuralink calling itself ‘small disadvantaged business’ may be a ‘problem’ for the brain chip company

Elon Musk’s health tech startup Neuralink has labelled itself as a “small disadvantaged business.” This comes shortly before a financing round valued the company at $9 billion. Despite being owned by the richest man in the world, the brain chip implant company said this in a federal filing with the US Small Business Administration (SBA) earlier this year. This designation is typically given to businesses that are at least 51% owned and controlled by certain disadvantaged individuals. The Department of Justice has previously issued fines to companies for making false claims about their Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) status, a NBC report claims, underscoring the serious nature of such declarations. However, no public record of Neuralink winning government contracts using this status has been found. Nuralink’s SDB filing in April was first reported by the Substack-based news site MuskWatch.