China has immediately retaliated against the US following new export curbs that the Biden administration announced Monday, which restrict a wider range of Chinese businesses from accessing any foreign products that include even a single US-made chip.
On Tuesday, China's Ministry of Commerce punched back, announcing a ban that takes effect immediately on "exports of 'dual-use items' related to gallium, germanium, antimony, and superhard materials to the US," Reuters reported. Such "dual-use items" cover goods and technologies used for civil or military purposes, while the rare-earth metals are critical to tech manufacturing.
"In principle, the export of gallium, germanium, antimony, and superhard materials to the United States shall not be permitted," China's ministry said.
Neuralink recently posted job listings on its website and held multiple hiring events at its facilities in California and Texas this month.
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Neuralink, Elon Musk's neurotechnology company, is hiring for multiple manufacturing roles.
A Neuralink recruiter wrote that the firm is looking for people to "boost production" of its tech.
Experts say it shows the company ramping up production earlier than most medical device makers would.
Neuralink, Elon Musk's brain-computer interface company, is looking to hire manufacturing technicians and microfabrication specialists.
The company, which is developing a device Musk has compared to a "FitBit in your skull," posted the job listings on its website this week. It also held multiple hiring events at its facilities in California and Texas this month, according to a review of LinkedIn posts from Neuralink recruiters and engineers. Two manufacturing technicians work at the company, based on public LinkedIn profiles, with those employees joining in 2021 and February 2024.
The roles will help "boost production," according to one post. "You will be instrumental in ramping production to accelerate progress towards our goal of restoring autonomy to those with unmet medical needs," another post reads.
A Neuralink recruiter said the company is hiring manufacturing technicians to "boost production."
LinkedIn
Manufacturing technicians in Texas would be paid $22 per hour flat rate to produce brain implants and accessories, and are required to work "extended hours and weekends, as needed." In California, technicians would be paid between $28.85 and $44.23 per hour to manufacture the R1 Surgical Robot, which is designed to fully automate the implantation of Neuralink's brain-computer interface.
A spokesperson for Neuralink did not respond to a request for comment. LinkedIn messages to Neuralink recruiters were not immediately returned.
Musk has said Neuralink's technology will eventually allow people to send messages or play games using only their thoughts. Initially, it will work to help people with neurological disorders.
The company received FDA clearance in May 2023 to launch human trials. So far, it has reported implanting the device in two human patients; one patient had issues with wires in the implant coming loose weeks after the surgery was completed.
Tinglong Dai, a professor of operations management and business analytics at Johns Hopkins University, told Business Insider that job posting indicates Neuralink is "staffing up for volume production."
"That's wild for a company that's only implanted two devices in their trial," Dai said. "But in some sense, this isn't really odd if you consider who is running this business," he said, pointing to Musk's experience with "production hell" at Tesla as perhaps influencing Neuralink's focus on quickly building out manufacturing capabilities
A separate listing for a microfabrication technician was posted two weeks ago and is no longer accepting applications. That role lists "experience working in a cleanroom" β a space designed to limit contamination β as a preferred qualification.
Neuralink also appears to be hiring for manufacturing roles for its surgical robot, a job listing shows.
"Typically, at this stage, you'd be hand-crafting the device. You wouldn't be expecting to scale production until you'd fully finalized it," Donoghue, who helped ramp up production for BrainGate's device, told Business Insider.
The FDA previously rejected Neuralink's bid for human testing in March 2023 over safety risks, Reuters reported. The agency cited concerns about movement from the wires connected to the brain chip and the potential for overheating.
Donoghue believes that Neuralink is at least seven years from the FDA approval required to bring a device to market. Any changes to the device, even small ones, would require the company to get further approval from the FDA and could further extend the timeline, he said.
Donoghue said Neuralink's apparent manufacturing push was outside "the usual process" for medical device companies. The company appears to be investing in mass production earlier than usual, he said.
Outside of the manufacturing roles, Neuralink has more than 30 full-time jobs listed on its careers page. It employs more than 600 people, including several former Tesla and SpaceX employees, according to a review of LinkedIn profiles.
It filed plans for a multi-building facility outside of Austin in 2022, according to the Austin American-Statesman. In July 2024, the company filed construction plans for a $14.7 million, 112,000 square foot facility, public records show, and earlier this year, it moved its state of incorporation to Nevada.
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The Commerce Department is pushing to spend every dollar allocated under President Biden's CHIPS and Science Act before President-elect Donald Trump enters the White House, the agency's Secretary Gina Raimondo said during an interview this week.Β
"Thatβs the goal. And I certainly want to have all the major announcements done as it relates to the big leading edge companies," Raimondo said. "I also would like to have all of that research and development money out the door by the time we leave as well."
Raimondo told Politico that she has been pushing her staff at the department hard to make these goals a reality, noting they worked all last weekend to shore up the spending.Β
In total, the CHIPS and Science Act allocated roughly $53 billion to help try to bring semiconductor supply chains back to the U.S. and to invest in research and development initiatives, among other programs aimed at boosting domestic chip manufacturing.
Thus far, only two companies have formalized binding awards to receive funding, according to Politico, and in order to get all the CHIPS Act's funding out the door before Trump's arrival, the agency must shore up multiple multibillion-dollar deals. The department has provisionally awarded much of the grant money so far, but much of it is tied up in complex negotiations, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Meanwhile, Trump has publicly shared his plans to claw back much of Biden's spending from the last four years and has derided Biden's CHIPS Act as "so bad." He has also expressed fervent support for trade tariffs, which Trump could use in an attempt to spur domestic manufacturing as opposed to spending more money.
On Tuesday, Trump announced Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick as his choice to replace Raimondo. Lutnick has expressed support for Trump's trade tariffs and cutting government spending.Β
The Department of Commerce did not provide Fox News Digital with any on-the-record comments prior to publication of this story.Β
Karla Trotman, CEO of Electro Soft Inc., says this plan would take a lot of time, money, and coordination.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Karla Trotman, President and CEO of Electro Soft Inc., a US specialty electronics manufacturer in Pennsylvania. She previously worked at Ikea as a supply chain specialist. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
We have been a global economy for a long time, and we don't have a culture of manufacturing anymore. Everyone told their kids to go to college instead.
Now we're in a position where political leaders want to increase manufacturing, but we first have to create a workforce. You can't just put an ad out and people will come running β we have to train people in manufacturing.
The concept of using tariffs to favor US manufacturing makes sense, but it takes some time to ramp up an industry that many people thought was dead.
My parents started Electro Soft Inc., 38 years ago. I left corporate 15 years ago as I wanted to run a family business. My dad and I worked together, and in 2020, I bought them out, so now I'm the owner, president, and CEO.
Electro Soft is a contract manufacturer, and we primarily focus on what I call the brain and central nervous system of devices β things like printed circuit board assemblies, cable assembly, wiring harnesses, and more.
Our niche is high-mix, lower-volume electronics. We're not doing large-volume cell phones like Foxconn in Asia.
We usually get our supplies through stocking distributors who stock it stateside. Our supply chain extends across the world, but we have a closer, more local reach to get many parts. A lot of components do come from Asia.
Most people think almost all electronics are made in Asia, but when there are "Buy American" restrictions, or when people want to have control over their intellectual property, we make them in the US because it's harder to enforce trademarks overseas.
There are times when clients want a little higher volume, and they're willing to allow some parts to come direct from Asia, and that's when we work with suppliers in Taiwan or China.
We're still feeling the reverberation from the last round of tariffs, so they never really went away in our industry. Some of our suppliers brought in additional stock, especially with supply chain uncertainties, so they're still depleting that.
One concern we have now is how strong the tariffs are going to be this time. Is there some type of financial impact that will be felt because the Trump administration wants to be tougher on tariffs?
If you have an industrial product that you're having manufactured overseas, it's going to be really expensive to have it built here.
All of your molds, all of your tooling, are overseas β so now those have to be made here or shipped over. Some fixtures might not even work with US machines. And you have to have machine operators, who you have to train.
If every company in the US wanted to do this, it would be a huge undertaking β it's not a switch that you can just turn on.
I'm actually out trying to champion manufacturing as a career in middle schools and high schools, convincing parents and high school guidance counselors that young people can have careers in advanced manufacturing. I even wrote a book about it, and am the co-chair of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Manufacturing Alliance.
I'm going upstream to figure out where these employees are going to come from if we do have this influx of manufacturing.
As we prepare for new tariffs, we're always in communication with our customers, because we are part of their supply chain.
We're asking things like, "Are you going to hold stock? Are we going to change the design of the product? Do you want us to hold safety stock here? What is your game plan?"
We have to understand the direction that customers are going to go so that we can meet any future demand: Do we need to invest more in the company? Do we need to put more resources behind hiring?
We really need to understand where our partners are headed so we can flex to meet whatever demand is going to come down the pike.
We can't simply just turn on a switch β it has to be an orchestrated plan.
