Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said many times that he loves humanity. So it’s not surprising that he is concerned about the low birthrate. Eight billion people may seem like a lot but Elon Musk is right in his concerns.
In May 2022, MedCity News published an article on the globally declining birth rate and noted that depopulation is placing a huge burden on a diminishing workforce. It also highlighted technological improvements in egg freezing have been improving pregnancy rates.
The United Nations projects that by 2100 the world will have 11.2 billion people, however, the birthrate was at its lowest in 2021. The good news is that it has been increasing a bit since then. According to the New York Times, the U.S. birthrate has increased by 1%. The increase stopped a steady decline.
Although this is a good thing, I think Elon Musk is right in his concerns. Elon Musk mentioned the 2021 statistic to me when he was on my podcast earlier this month.
Elon Musk Is Raising Awareness About Population Decline
The Tesla CEO has been raising awareness about the decline in population for quite some time. Today on Twitter he shared a few tweets that echoed what he told me in my podcasts a couple of weeks ago. He tweeted that he’s doing his best to help with the crisis and added, “A collapsing birthrate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far.”
Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis.
A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 7, 2022
His tweets come as the news of him having another set of twins made its way around Twitter. (Congratulations, Elon!) During our conversation, I brought up a reason that I thought was pretty valid and it opened a good debate where I think we both learned a little from one another. I certainly learned from him.
I’ve always thought poverty played a key role, but I could be wrong. I have friends at all income levels who have children. I also have friends at various income levels who don’t and the most common complaint I’ve heard is that ‘children are too expensive.’ I think what Kim Paquette asked Elon was very important.
https://twitter.com/kimpaquette/status/1545050919561093120
Elon Musk’s Thoughts On Population Decline
Elon pointed out to me that there’s another issue playing a major role in the birthrate decline and this makes the most sense.
“Well, the population decline problem, I think, is possibly the biggest risk to civilization. It’s certainly one of the biggest risks. First of all, a lot of people think that there’s too many humans on the planet and the planet can’t sustain this number of humans.”
“This is absolutely not true we could double the population without any meaningful damage to the environment. You can put all the humans on earth in the City of New. York. That’s the cross-sectional area of humans.”
“They literally fit the city of New. York with on one floor you don’t even need high-rises. If you’re on a plane flight and you look down and you say, ‘what percentage of the time, if I were to drop a ball, would that ball would hit a person?’”
“Basically zero. Even in a city like LA which you would think ‘oh that’s a crowded city.’ But looking at it from above, what’s the cross-sectional area of humans relative to the rest of the ground? And it’s much less than one percent in even in LA.”
“If you’re in a big city environment and you see a lot of people you sort of extrapolate that to everywhere. But it’s actually very rare to see a concentration of humans. The earth is very sparsely populated with humans. There’s not enough humans far from being too many.”
“And I think people are still operating on the assumption that the population’s just growing like crazy when in fact the opposite is occurring. And these numbers are easy to look up. I mean, they’re just on the internet. We had the lowest birth rate in recorded history last year.”
Again, I think that Elon Musk is right to raise awareness about the low birthrate. Whether or not you agree with Elon Musk on the topic of population, he’s doing a good thing by raising awareness.
USA birth rate has been below min sustainable levels for ~50 years pic.twitter.com/v5PSLbvEAE
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 24, 2022
Elon Musk
Brazil Supreme Court orders Elon Musk and X investigation closed
The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.
Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has ordered the closure of an investigation involving Elon Musk and social media platform X. The inquiry had been pending for about two years and examined whether the platform was used to coordinate attacks against members of the judiciary.
The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.
According to a report from Agencia Brasil, the investigation conducted by the Federal Police did not find evidence that X deliberately attempted to attack the judiciary or circumvent court orders.
Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet concluded that the irregularities identified during the probe did not indicate fraudulent intent.
Justice Moraes accepted the prosecutor’s recommendation and ruled that the investigation should be closed. Under the ruling, the case will remain closed unless new evidence emerges.
The inquiry stemmed from concerns that content on X may have enabled online attacks against Supreme Court justices or violated rulings requiring the suspension of certain accounts under investigation.
Justice Moraes had previously taken several enforcement actions related to the platform during the broader dispute involving social media regulation in Brazil.
These included ordering a nationwide block of the platform, freezing Starlink accounts, and imposing fines on X totaling about $5.2 million. Authorities also froze financial assets linked to X and SpaceX through Starlink to collect unpaid penalties and seized roughly $3.3 million from the companies’ accounts.
Moraes also imposed daily fines of up to R$5 million, about $920,000, for alleged evasion of the X ban and established penalties of R$50,000 per day for VPN users who attempted to bypass the restriction.
Brazil remains an important market for X, with roughly 17 million users, making it one of the platform’s larger user bases globally.
The country is also a major market for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, which has surpassed one million subscribers in Brazil.
Elon Musk
FCC chair criticizes Amazon over opposition to SpaceX satellite plan
Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.
U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr criticized Amazon after the company opposed SpaceX’s proposal to launch a large satellite constellation that could function as an orbital data center network.
Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.
Amazon recently urged the FCC to reject SpaceX’s application to deploy a constellation of up to 1 million low Earth orbit satellites that could serve as artificial intelligence data centers in space.
The company described the proposal as a “lofty ambition rather than a real plan,” arguing that SpaceX had not provided sufficient details about how the system would operate.
Carr responded by pointing to Amazon’s own satellite deployment progress.
“Amazon should focus on the fact that it will fall roughly 1,000 satellites short of meeting its upcoming deployment milestone, rather than spending their time and resources filing petitions against companies that are putting thousands of satellites in orbit,” Carr wrote on X.
Amazon has declined to comment on the statement.
Amazon has been working to deploy its Project Kuiper satellite network, which is intended to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink service. The company has invested more than $10 billion in the program and has launched more than 200 satellites since April of last year.
Amazon has also asked the FCC for a 24-month extension, until July 2028, to meet a requirement to deploy roughly 1,600 satellites by July 2026, as noted in a CNBC report.
SpaceX’s Starlink network currently has nearly 10,000 satellites in orbit and serves roughly 10 million customers. The FCC has also authorized SpaceX to deploy 7,500 additional satellites as the company continues expanding its global satellite internet network.
Energy
Tesla Energy gains UK license to sell electricity to homes and businesses
The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.
Tesla Energy has received a license to supply electricity in the United Kingdom, opening the door for the company to serve homes and businesses in the country.
The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.
According to Ofgem, the license took effect at 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday and applies to Great Britain.
The approval allows Tesla’s energy business to sell electricity directly to customers in the region, as noted in a Bloomberg News report.
Tesla has already expanded similar services in the United States. In Texas, the company offers electricity plans that allow Tesla owners to charge their vehicles at a lower cost while also feeding excess electricity back into the grid.
Tesla already has a sizable presence in the UK market. According to price comparison website U-switch, there are more than 250,000 Tesla electric vehicles in the country and thousands of Tesla home energy storage systems.
Ofgem also noted that Tesla Motors Ltd., a separate entity incorporated in England and Wales, received an electricity generation license in June 2020.
The new UK license arrives as Tesla continues expanding its global energy business.
Last year, Tesla Energy retained the top position in the global battery energy storage system (BESS) integrator market for the second consecutive year. According to Wood Mackenzie’s latest rankings, Tesla held about 15% of global market share in 2024.
The company also maintained a dominant position in North America, where it captured roughly 39% market share in the region.
At the same time, competition in the energy storage sector is increasing. Chinese companies such as Sungrow have been expanding their presence globally, particularly in Europe.
Brazil Supreme Court orders Elon Musk and X investigation closed
FCC chair criticizes Amazon over opposition to SpaceX satellite plan
