‘There won’t be enough people for Mars’: Elon Musk warns of population collapse

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wants people to be concerned about having more children. Given downward trend in birth rate, that is best case unless reversed.” While also quoting birth rate in Japan, he said, "last year, Japan had ~800k births & life expectancy is 85 years, implying future population of only 68M, dropping almost half from current population of 126M. Meanwhile, United States population growth dipped to its lowest rate since the nation’s founding during the first year of the pandemic as the coronavirus curtailed immigration, delayed pregnancies and killed hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents, according to figures released last month in December. “It tells us that this pandemic has had a huge impact on us in all kinds of ways, and now demography.” Once there’s a handle on the pandemic, the U.S. may eventually see a decrease in deaths, but population growth likely won’t bounce back to what it has been in years past because of fewer births. “We see younger people putting off having children and they’re going to have fewer children.” The population estimates are derived from calculating the number of births, deaths and migration in the U.S. For the first time, international migration surpassed natural increases that come from births outnumbering deaths.