Elon Musk has once again raised alarm about the world’s declining population, calling it one of humanity’s greatest threats. Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Musk shared a graph highlighting projected population changes between 2018 and 2100, drawing attention to dramatic demographic shifts in countries like Nigeria, the US, China, and India.
The graph was initially posted by the Tesla Owners Silicon Valley account, accompanied by the caption: “Population collapse is humanity’s greatest threat… Elon Musk.” Musk retweeted it with a “Yes.”
A declining trend with global implications
Experts have long acknowledged the reality of population decline, but the speed and scale of the crisis remain hotly debated. Declining fertility rates, ageing populations, and emigration are the main factors driving this trend. For a population to remain stable, the average number of children per woman needs to be 2.1— a threshold most countries are failing to meet.
The problem is starkly evident in the United Kingdom (UK), where the fertility rate in England and Wales hit an all-time low of 1.44 children per woman in 2023, according to the Office for National Statistics. This is part of a broader global trend: fertility rates have plummeted from an average of 5.3 children per woman in 1963 to less than half that figure today, as reported by the Daily Express.
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