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Elon Musk’s Neuralink is shooting to put its coin-sized brain implant into human patients within 6 months — but you can’t invest. 3 other ways to bet on the world's richest man

Elon Musk’s Neuralink is shooting to put its coin-sized brain implant into human patients within 6 months — but you can’t invest. 3 other ways to bet on the world's richest man
Elon Musk’s Neuralink is shooting to put its coin-sized brain implant into human patients within 6 months — but you can’t invest. 3 other ways to bet on the world's richest man

Elon Musk is good at multitasking. He is the CEO of Tesla, owner of Twitter, and chief engineer of SpaceX — a company with an ambition to colonize Mars.

And now, the billionaire is making headlines because of Neuralink, a company he co-founded to develop implantable brain-machine interfaces.

At a Neuralink “show and tell” event on Wednesday night, Musk showcased a video of a monkey “telepathically typing” on a screen using a computing brain implant.

Musk says that the company is aiming for its first human trials of the coin-sized brain implant within the next six months.

“Obviously, we want to be extremely careful and certain that it will work well before putting a device in a human, but we’re submitted, I think, most of our paperwork to the FDA,” says the serial entrepreneur.

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Other than the brain-computer interface, Musk also revealed two other ambitions at Neuralink: restoring vision for the blind and “full-body functionality” for people with severed spinal cords.

If these products can achieve what they are set out to do, it would certainly be miraculous. But Neuralink is a private company so it’s hard for retail investors to be a part of the journey.

But you can still invest alongside Elon Musk — here’s a look at how.

Tesla (TSLA)

Musk has created quite a few successful businesses. But he is best-known as the co-founder and CEO of EV maker Tesla.

According to Bloomberg, Musk’s biggest asset at the moment is Tesla equity.

While Tesla stock hasn’t been a hot commodity — shares are down a painful 51% year to date — it remains a behemoth in the automotive industry. With a market cap of around $600 billion, Tesla is several times bigger than Ford and General Motors combined.

And despite the stock’s downturn, business is still heading in the right direction.

In Q3, Tesla delivered 343,830 EVs (18,672 Model S/X and 325,158 Model 3/Y). The amount represented a 42% increase year over year.

The company has substantially ramped up its production, too. In Q3, it produced 365,923 EVs (19,935 Model S/X and 345,988 3/Y), or 54% more than its production in the year-ago period.

Wall Street also sees upside in Tesla shares. For instance, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas has an ‘overweight’ rating on Tesla and a price target of $330 — roughly 71% above where the stock sits today.

Cryptocurrency

Once considered a niche asset, cryptocurrency has now entered the mainstream. A study from the CFA Institute earlier this year showed that 94% of state and government pension plans have invested in cryptocurrencies.

Of course, many investors learned about cryptocurrencies’ volatility the hard way through this year’s massive pullback. For instance, bitcoin — the largest cryptocurrency in the world — is down 64% so far in 2022.

Read more: Rich young Americans have lost confidence in the stock market — and are betting on these assets instead. Get in now for strong long-term tailwinds

Musk has been one of the more outspoken proponents of cryptocurrency.

“I still own & won’t sell my Bitcoin, Ethereum or Doge fwiw,” he said in a tweet earlier this year.

There are plenty of platforms that allow you to invest in crypto. Just be aware of fees: many exchanges charge up to 4% in commission fees just to buy and sell crypto. But some investing apps charge 0%.

Real estate

In the tweet where Musk shared his view on crypto, he also discussed the importance of owning “physical things” in an inflationary environment.

“As a general principle, for those looking for advice from this thread, it is generally better to own physical things like a home or stock in companies you think make good products, than dollars when inflation is high.”

Despite the Fed’s aggressive rate hikes, real estate remains a popular asset. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-City Composite Home Price NSA Index is up 10% over the past year.

As the price of raw materials and labor goes up, new properties are more expensive to build. And that drives up the price of existing real estate.

Well-chosen properties can provide more than just an inflation hedge. Investors also get to earn a steady stream of rental income.

But you don’t need to be a landlord to start investing in real estate. There are plenty of real estate investment trusts (REITs) as well as crowdfunding platforms that can get you started on becoming a real estate mogul.

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This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.