Musk said he thought Neuralink would have something interesting to announce in a few months that would be at least an order of magnitude better than anything else.

Take 'a few months' from 2018-09-07 to mean by 2019-03-31. True: by 2019-03-31 Neuralink publicly announced a device or result that, on its published specifications, is at least 10x better than the best existing brain-machine interface on a key performance measure (for example electrode or channel count, or data bandwidth). Mostly true: such an announcement was made by the deadline and the advantage is close to 10x (about 8x or more) or is shown on a slightly different measure, with the rest as stated. Mostly false: an announcement was made by the deadline but shows only a clearly smaller advantage, or an announcement showing an advantage of 10x or more came after 2019-03-31 (late counts as mostly false at most). False: Neuralink announced nothing of the kind by 2019-03-31 (for example its first public disclosure is dated later) and any later announcement does not show an advantage of about 10x either. Neuralink's own description of the advantage counts only if it is backed by published specifications that can be compared with existing systems.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Elon Musk unveils Neuralink’s plans for brain-reading ‘threads’ and a robot to insert them The Verge · 16 July 2019

   “BrainGate relied on the Utah Array, a series of stiff needles that allows for up to 128 electrode channels. Not only is that fewer channels than Neuralink is promising — meaning less data from the brain is being picked up — it’s also stiffer than Neuralink’s threads.”

2. E2 Elon Musk's Secretive Brain Tech Company Debuts a Sophisticated Neural Implant Scientific American · 17 July 2019

   “Perhaps the gold standard in neural recording for BCI research is the Utah Array, which consists of a rigid grid of up to 128 electrode channels.”

3. E3 An integrated brain-machine interface platform with thousands of channels Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (indexed by ouci.dntb.gov.ua) · 14 March 2019 Own record

   “We have built arrays of small and flexible electrode “threads”, with as many as 3,072 electrodes per array distributed across 96 threads.”

4. E4 Elon Musk suggests he's only months from 'merging' the human brain with AI Becker's Hospital Review · 11 September 2018

   ““I think we’ll have something interesting to announce in a few months that’s at least an order of magnitude better than anything else — probably than anyone thinks is possible,” he continued.”

E3 reports 3,072 electrodes per array, about 24x the Utah Array's 128 channels (E1, E2), and is dated 2019-03-14, before the deadline. The independent coverage is dated July 2019 (E1, E2), but the material does not show whether E3's work was public by 2019-03-31, so it cannot settle whether the announcement was on time or late.