Julie O’Neill Quoted in Fortune’s “Elon Musk’s brain-implant startup Neuralink may have misled regulators about Musk’s leadership role”

February 4, 2022

In 2018, Neuralink’s attorney wrote a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), downplaying Elon Musk’s leadership role at the company. Former Neuralink employees have also come forward, however, their statements contradict the attorney’s letter to the SEC. This contradiction could further antagonize the SEC, which has already had rocky interactions with Musk, and it could prompt Congress to review the process by which the SEC grants certain waivers to companies looking to raise money through private share offerings.

Based on Fortune’s reporting, it is quite possible that Neuralink’s 2018 letter and possibly its 2017 and 2019 Form Ds contained misleading statements. Julie O’Neill spoke with Fortune about this:

“My guess is that is not a true statement,” Julie O’Neill, a securities lawyer at Bowditch, a law firm in Boston, said of Neuralink’s claim that Musk was not an officer of the company. O’Neill also said that making materially false statements on Form D could be illegal.

Continue reading the full article “Elon Musk’s brain-implant startup Neuralink may have misled regulators about Musk’s leadership role” on the Fortune website.