"Make kids, not war": Elon Musk warns South Korea as the land of K-romance faces a 96% birth rate decline

Elon Musk has once again drawn attention to South Korea’s falling birth rates, calling the situation a “catastrophic population collapse.” The billionaire entrepreneur made the statement in response to a post on X (formerly Twitter) that included a stark visualisation of the country’s demographic crisis.

The highlighted portion of the post read: “In South Korea, where the total fertility rate is the lowest in the world at 0.68, every 200 fertile-age adults can expect to give life to 68 children; those children will produce 23 grandchildren, who will result in only eight great-grandchildren. That’s a 96 percent population decline over the course of three generations, and that’s if fertility stops decreasing and finally holds steady.”

A user reacted to the alarming statistics by stating, “This is such an insane thing to visualise.” Musk replied with a brief but pointed response: “Catastrophic population collapse.”

A Repeated Warning on Population Decline

This is not the first time Musk has warned about declining birth rates. Last month, in response to a report on Japan’s shrinking population, he argued that immigration cannot serve as a long-term solution. “Many countries are disappearing. Immigration cannot solve billions in population collapse. It simply isn’t physically possible. More importantly, we should not lose entire, distinct cultures!” he said.

The demographic warning is not limited to East Asia. Musk has also pointed to Singapore’s low birth rates, stating that if current trends persist, the country could face a serious population crisis. He has previously described declining birth rates as “humanity’s greatest threat.”

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Japanese demographer Hiroshi Yoshida has projected that, at the current