Elon Musk is obsessed with ‘population collapse’ – but what is it and is it really a threat?

If there’s one thing Elon Musk does on Twitter even more often than posting dodgy memes, it’s talking about ‘population collapse’.

The Tesla CEO and billionaire has been very vocal over recent times about the threat of a reduction in the human population size.

“We should be much more worried about population collapse… if there aren’t enough people for Earth, then there definitely won’t be enough for Mars,” Musk wrote in a tweet earlier this year.

“USA birth rate has been below min sustainable levels for ~50 years. (The) past two years have been a demographic disaster,” he also posted.

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Musk also said that Italy, where the birth rate has been falling since the 1960s, would have “no people” if that rate continues to decline.

Leaving aside Musk’s ambitions to put people on Mars…