VICTOR JOECKS: Musk half right about fertility crisis

The world’s richest man isn’t just juggling multiple companies. He’s juggling multiple baby mamas.

The Wall Street Journal recently featured a piece on Elon Musk’s complicated personal life. He has at least 14 children with four different women. The “harem drama” — in the words of Musk’s ex-girlfriend Ashley St. Clair — is a mess. There are fights about custody and questions about paternity. There are details about Musk using a message on X to unsuccessfully recruit a woman to have his child. Reportedly, Musk has a compound where he wants his children and their mothers to live. There are enough emotions and chaos to make a soap opera fan blush.

But the reason Musk has fathered so many children isn’t mere sexual hedonism. Musk has four children with Shivon Zilis, an executive at Neuralink. Zilis previously said Musk offered to donate sperm that she could use to have children. Musk also donated sperm to a “high-profile woman” at the request of Japanese officials, the Journal reported.

“I think for most countries, they should view the birthrate as the single biggest problem they need to solve,” Musk said last year at an investment conference. “If you don’t make new humans, there’s no humanity, and all the policies in the world don’t matter.”

The interviewer then jokingly referenced Musk’s many offspring. “You’ve got to walk the talk,” Musk replied. “So I do have a lot of kids, and I encourage others to have lots of kids.”

Musk is right about the need for more babies. Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that America’s fertility rate had dropped to “another historic low.” For a generation to replace itself, it takes 2,100 births per 1,000 women, as measured over their lifetimes. In 2023, the total fertility rate was under 1,620 births per 1,000 women. For now, immigration drives U.S. population growth.

It’s worse in many places around the world. In South Korea, women have fewer than 0.7 children on average. Its population is projected to drop from more than 51 million today to under 22 million by 2100. China is projected to go from 1.4 billion people to under 670 million by the end of the century.

This drop in population will usher in a host of problems, including an epidemic of loneliness and reduced economic growth.

But Musk’s approach to fixing this problem is wrong, immoral and ultimately counterproductive.

Children aren’t robots to build in a factory. They are human beings whose future depends greatly on the people around them. Statistically, the best thing for children is to be raised by their married biological parents. That’s why intentionally creating fatherless babies is a grave mistake.

Moms and dads approach parenting differently. That doesn’t make one sex better at parenting than the other. It allows them to complement each other. Moms and dads play with and talk to their kids in different but important ways. A child needs both the comfort of a mother’s love and the confidence that comes from a father pushing him or her to take safe risks.

Marriage brings a stability that children need. Growing up with a single parent significantly increases a child’s likelihood of growing up in poverty and going to jail. It decreases their chances of graduating from college. Married women are more likely to have children, too. In 2022, the fertility rate among married women was 84.2 births per 1,000 women. Among unmarried women it was 37.2 per thousand.

Obviously, there will be outliers when you’re talking about hundreds of millions of people. But the trends are obvious. If Musk wants to boost birthrates and improve outcomes for children, he should promote marriage, not sperm donations.

Contact Victor Joecks at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.