Elon Musk is literally putting computer chips in a human brain. Where are the conspiracy theorists?

It might be a flippant and trite observation on a subject that brilliant thinkers have dedicated entire books to understanding, but it’s a funny old thing, conspiratorial thinking. For example, during the early rollout of the various vaccines for COVID-19, there were persistent rumours about Bill Gates’ involvement in funding vaccine research. There were claims that Gates briefed the CIA about a “mind-altering vaccine”, and most memorably, that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was spending billions to put tracking microchips into COVID-19 vaccines. These were all repeatedly debunked.

We only thought of it because this week, Elon Musk openly announced that he had successfully implanted a chip into a human brain, and no-one among his followers appeared to have any follow-up questions.

It is a strange quirk that Musk, who would seem to fulfil many of the criteria for a conspiracy theory figure — as, say, a billionaire who works in wildly experimental tech, who is able to buy up a huge tract of what remains of a “public square” on a whim and distort it in his own image — has managed to not only stay out of the conspiracy theorists’ wilder ideas but has seemingly come to be subject of a slightly heroic cult of personality. This could be because he gives the distinct impression that he agrees with them.

To take just last year:

• In early 2023 he breezily chatted with a QAnon influencer on and off for weeks.
• In May 2023 over the course of less than five days, Musk suggested a mass shooting in Texas was a “psyop” and tweeted that billionaire philanthropist and favourite of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories George Soros wants to “erode the very fabric of civilization” and “hates humanity.”
• In November 2023 he tweeted support for the long-debunked Pizzagate theory and replied “you have said the actual truth” to a post sharing an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
• In December 2023 he reinstated the account of high-profile far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, last seen laughing and insisting he won’t pay the US$1.5 billion he owes the families of victims of the Sandy Hook mass shooting.

All of which might explain how Musk has stayed out of conspiracy theories while openly doing exactly the kind of things they would allege.