When Norland Arbaugh woke up each day before his Neuralink implant, he didn't see much point. He had no goals, no plans. Nothing in his life felt "worth waking up for," as he put it in a post on X Thursday.

A Second Chance at Living

Then he became the first person ever to receive Elon Musk's brain-computer interface chip, and everything changed. "Then I got my Neuralink implant and everything shifted," Arbaugh wrote. He felt like his life had purpose again—not just in small ways, but fundamentally. "Neuralink didn't just change what I can do. It changed what I believe I'm capable of."

Since receiving the implant, Arbaugh has started a business, gone back to school, and started traveling. That's a remarkable turnaround for someone who became quadriplegic after a diving accident in 2016 left him paralyzed from a neck vertebrae injury.

Now he's eyeing something even more ambitious: a second Neuralink implant positioned below his injury site. This one could potentially help with leg movements. "I can't overstate how fired up I am about the Neuralink dual implant," Arbaugh said, calling the technology's potential "unreal."

The Bigger Vision

Musk, never one for modest predictions, recently suggested humans might achieve digital immortality within 20 years by uploading mind snapshots into Tesla Inc. (TSLA) Optimus robots, with Neuralink chips playing a supporting role. "I think that at some point, that technology becomes possible, and it's probably less than 20 years," Musk said.

Meanwhile, Neuralink is pushing ahead with its Blindsight implant, which Musk claims could restore vision in completely blind people. The company plans to conduct vision-restoration trials in the UAE by 2026.

The momentum is real. Neuralink just closed over $600 million in Series E funding, pushing its valuation past $9 billion. That positions it as a major player in the neurotechnology space and another significant piece of Musk's sprawling business empire.