Natalism Is Not Enough

The world’s richest man is also the world’s leading proponent of natalism.

“Having children is saving the world,” Elon Musk posted on X, the site he now owns. He’s posted a periodic stream of warnings about sub-replacement-rate fertility levels and declining birth rates around the globe. The Tesla mogul can’t be accused of not taking his advice to heart, having fathered at least eleven children with three women. “Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis,” he noted drolly. “A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far.”

Musk isn’t alone in his crusade. Natalism, as a movement, boasts an eclectic range of backers in Silicon Valley and at D.C. think tanks, and an especially high-profile champion in Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

We’ve suffered through enough years of “population bomb” propaganda. Decades of Malthusian warnings about population growth and declining resources have failed to play out, and technological progress belies the common suggestion that a sustainable world requires fewer people. A growing focus on the perils of a depopulating world, or on what it says that Western society seems increasingly unwilling to reproduce itself, is welcome.