Elon Musk says the declining birthrate is the greatest threat to civilisation. Photo / AP
Elon Musk says the declining birthrate is the greatest threat to civilisation. Photo / AP
ANALYSIS
Elon Musk thinks civilisation will collapse unless people have more babies. It's a stark warning.
For months now, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX — and aspiring owner of Twitter — has been tweeting about global birthrate declines.
A father of at least seven, the 50-year-old billionaire has singled out Hong Kong, South Korea, China and the United States as being at risk of "collapse". Most recently he said Japan would "eventually cease to exist".
It's an argument he's been making for several years — but is it real or does he have an ulterior motive?
Musk says the idea that planet Earth was overpopulated "is an outdated view". Japan is his most recent cataclysmic prophecy.
"At risk of stating the obvious, unless something changes to cause the birthrate to exceed the death rate, Japan will eventually cease to exist," Musk tweeted. "This would be a great loss to the world."
Kris Jenner and Elon Musk at the 2022 Met Gala. Photo / Getty Images
But he also warned Italy is at risk of "disappearing" after its birthrate fell to about one child per woman last year. "Italy will have no people," he tweeted.
It was just another expansion of an argument he detailed last year.
"So many people, including smart people, think that there are too many people in the world and think that the population is growing out of control," he told a Wall Street Journal CEO Council in December.
"It's completely the opposite. Please look at the numbers — if people don't have more children, civilisation is going to crumble, mark my words."
Musk isn't the only billionaire worried about growth.
He met with Alibaba founder Jack Ma at the 2019 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China to discuss the issue.
"The population problem is going to be a huge challenge," Ma said. "1.4 billion people in China sounds a lot, but I think — in the next 20 years — this will bring big trouble to China. And … the speed of population decrease is going to speed up. You called it a 'collapse' … I agree with you."
China imposed decades of birth restrictions on its populace to reverse a murderous famine. But the policy of "one child, one family" has been lifted, and families aren't suddenly having more children.
And that's a scenario that has Musk worried.
"We don't necessarily need to grow dramatically," he says, "but at least let's not gradually dwindle away until civilisation ends with all of us in adult diapers, in a whimper."
Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition in Washington in March. Photo / AP
Musk's worry is there won't be enough consumers and taxpayers to sustain the global economy in the form it is now. It's a fear shared by Beijing. But its attempts to encourage young women to have babies have so far backfired.
'Most people don't have the means for a large family'
Some say it's because population decline isn't just a matter of giving women a choice.
It's also a matter of family economics – not billionaire economics.
Even those who can afford homes often cannot buy ones suitable for raising children. And this applies to rentals, too.
Trends away from full-time employment towards a 'gig economy' — where there's no guarantee of continuous work — mean more employees are always worried about the next pay cheque.
Most recently Musk said Japan would 'eventually cease to exist'. Photo / AP
And children, like houses, are a lifelong investment.
"Elon Musk's extreme wealth and gender make it easy for him to have many children, but most people who get to choose their family size do not have the means or desire to have a large one," Olivia Nater of Population Matters says.
"He seems blind to the fact that shrinking family size is a result of women's emancipation, allowing them to pursue education and careers instead of being chained to the home," she says.
Stress is also rampant. The multitudinous pressures of modern life are taking a toll. We're having far less sex than ever before.
It seems couples are just not in the mood after long hours chasing corporate productivity targets. And those expectations are set by the likes of Musk.
Understanding the numbers
Musk points out the average woman needs to have 2.1 children to meet population replacement rates. Instead, the US has recently produced about 1.8 children per woman. That's almost half the fertility rate of the 1950s.
But its population is still growing. It takes a lifetime for population momentums to shift.
The World Bank says the birthrate worldwide has dropped since 1960 to a current level of 2.4.
But that doesn't mean the global population has stopped rising.
"Musk needs to heed his own advice and look at the numbers," Olivia Nater of Population Matters says. "Although the population growth rate has been falling, we are still adding around 80 million people — about the population size of Germany — to our ranks every year."
The United Nations aims to stabilise the global population at about 11 billion. But chances are that won't happen until well after the end of the century.
"While a few countries do now have naturally declining populations, among them Japan and parts of Eastern Europe, this is more than made up for by rapid growth in other areas," Nater adds.
Projections the global population will reach 10 billion are already creating concern over how we will feed that many people. Not to mention the impact to the environment.
"The fact is that close to 8 billion people on Earth and growing is hugely unsustainable – together with overconsumption in wealthy nations (especially by billionaires), it is the driver of all our current environmental crises, from climate warming to resource depletion to the sixth mass extinction," says Nater.
"The environment is going to be fine even if we doubled the size of the humans," he insists. "I know a lot about environmental stuff, so we can't have civilisation just dwindle into nothing."
But he didn't detail what "environmental stuff" would reverse climate change and dramatically increase sustainable food and water production.
Is Musk actually part of the problem?
Musk told the Wall Street Journal gathering that he tries to "set a good example" in work and family life: "Gotta practice what I preach."
Thus the (highly promoted) long hours at work. And seven kids.
But he's not prepared to accept he may be part of the problem.
Where birthrates have fallen, reversing the trend has proven stubbornly difficult. Countries have tried financial incentives, improving maternity leave and free childcare. Debates are raging about work-life balance and emotional and economic stress.
Musk attends the opening of the Tesla factory Berlin Brandenburg in Gruenheide, Germany in March. Photo / AP
None of these subjects is likely to find favour with Musk.
After all, he attempted to avoid shutting down his factories in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. And he's already declared a post-pandemic recession would be a "good thing".
"All the Covid stay-at-home stuff has tricked people into thinking that you don't actually need to work hard," he tweeted. "Rude awakening inbound!"
This week, he ordered all 110,000 Tesla and SpaceX staff to return to the office – or quit.
"Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours per week or depart," he stated in a memo. "If you don't show up, we will assume you have resigned."
Musk is not a name associated with an environment conducive to happy, relaxed, economically stable workers. But that's a state many couples desire before becoming "in a family way".
Critics argue his only priorities are Twitter, Tesla, SpaceX — and Mars.
Musk has already said if there aren't enough people on Earth, "then there definitely won't be enough for Mars".
"Population collapse is a much bigger problem than people realise, and that's just for Earth. Mars has a great need for people, seeing as population is currently zero," he tweeted.
Nater says it's not in Musk's best interest to address the real issues behind falling birthrates.
"Musk and his fellow space baron billionaire Jeff Bezos are so invested in capitalist consumerism and seemingly obsessed with dystopian sci-fi futures that they view this planet as just another resource for us to maximally exploit before we move on to others," she says.
