The world’s richest man has a continued worry that without steps taken, a population collapse could be coming. Here’s what Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk had to say recently about population collapse and population density.
What Happened: Musk said so many of his friends have zero or one kid, a growing trend that is leading to population decline.
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“Civilization is going to collapse,” Musk said in an interview with the Tesla Owners Silicon Valley Club.
Musk said a lot of people don’t understand the severity of what people having less than two kids on average could do for the future.
He also asked if people really understand that babies don’t come from “some magical f****** people factory. They gotta come from somewhere and they take ages to grow.”
Musk criticized places such as China, which lost 600,000 people last year. The country changed its one child policy years ago and despite now having a three-child policy the country has seen its population decline.
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“Hopefully things turn around,” he said.
Musk and the interviewers discussed the possibility of religion playing into the decline with non-religious families having fewer children than those that are religious.
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Why It’s Important: Musk has been vocal about population declines recently sharing his thoughts on Twitter Inc TWTR, including criticizing China. Musk has shared stats that show the average family needs to have 2.1 children to keep the population level going forward.
The Tesla CEO argued people may be misinformed about population density thinking that the world cannot sustain more people, which is actually false.
Musk said the Earth could have double the population and population density is actually quite low.
For reference, Musk said if you took all the humans of the world side by side and stacked “one human tall,” they would fit in New York City.
Another example he shared was a time when space debris crashed down on Earth and not one person got hurt.