China’s falling birth rate prompts Elon Musk to warn of looming ‘population collapse’

Elon Musk, the billionaire co-founder of electric car maker Tesla, has warned of a looming “population collapse” in China, where his company seeks to expand after opening a major factory in Shanghai in 2019.

Commenting on an article carried on the BBC Future website predicting that China’s population would further decline, Musk wrote on Twitter on Monday: “Most people still think China has a one-child policy. China had its lowest birth rate ever last year, despite having a three-child policy! At current birth rates, China will lose ~40 per cent of people every generation! Population collapse.”

China is facing a major demographic challenge as the workforce shrinks in the rapidly ageing country. Its birth rate hit a record low last year. Just 10.6 million babies were born in China in 2021, the lowest number recorded since the Communist Party took power in 1949.

Last year, the fertility rate, or the number of children per woman, was 1.15, official figures showed – below the level in Japan, which has a similarly ageing population, and below the replacement rate of 2.1.