Elon Musk Taking A Break From Twitter 'For A While'

Elon Musk announced today (2 February) he is taking a break from Twitter 'for a while'.

The SpaceX and Tesla CEO offered no explanation or elaboration:

I suppose only time shall tell what Musk considers a 'while' - no doubt his near 45 million followers will wait for his return with bated breath.

Most of us don't really have a great deal better to do than scroll Twitter at the moment, but Musk clearly has quite a lot on his plate - such as getting humans to Mars within six years.

Speaking at the Axel Springer Award ceremony in Berlin in December, he said: "I feel fairly confident about six years from now.

"The Earth-Mars synchronisation occurs roughly every 26 months, so we had one this year, in the summer. That means in roughly two years there'll be another one, and then two years after that.

"So I think six years from now, highly confident, if we get lucky, maybe four years. And then we want to try to send an un-crewed vehicle there in two years."

Musk added that he might make his own first trip into orbit in 'two to three years', but his priority is getting the infrastructure in place to allow 'a lot of people to go to Mars and make life interplanetary, and to have a base on the moon'.

He added: "I think it's important that we aspire to have a self-sustaining city on Mars as soon as possible."

PA

Oh, and he's also cracking on with his brain chip device Neuralink, which he has said could begin human trials this year.

One of Musk's followers said he was in a terrible car accident 20 years ago that left him paralysed from the shoulders and he offered up his body and mind for human trials.

Musk replied: "Neuralink is working super hard to ensure implant safety & is in close communication with the FDA. If things go well, we might be able to do initial human trials later this year."

The Neuralink is a microchip that can be implanted into a human or animal's brain and would work in tandem with the mind.

Musk has previously claimed the device is potentially limitless, and could even allow humans to compete with artificial intelligence.

The start-up's head neurosurgeon Matthew MacDougall spoke at a presentation last year to say the company has so far only implanted the chip into the brain's cortical surface.

However, in the future they're hoping to go deeper into areas such as the hypothalamus, which is believed to play a crucial role in mental illnesses.

This reflects an earlier statement in which Musk said the device could be used to retrain the part of the brain responsible for causing addiction, depression or anxiety.

Sadly, we won't be quite as up to date with Musk's various ground-breaking projects until he returns to his devout Twitter following.

Topics: elon musk, Twitter

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey