'Humans are disappearing.' Elon Musk comments again on Singapore's historic-low birth rate

SINGAPORE: Upon reposting a video of Prime Minister Lawrence Wong announcing the slew of family support measures from his National Day Rally speech last Sunday (Aug 23), Tesla co-founder Elon Musk pronounced gloomily that “Humans are disappearing.”

This is not the first time that Mr Musk has said something along these lines, nor is it the first time he has mentioned it in Singapore’s specific context.

In 2024, Mr Musk wrote that “Singapore (and many other countries) are going extinct.”

The businessman, currently the richest man in the world, has been warning about a “population collapse” since at least 2019. And while many countries, including Singapore, are seeing a marked decline in birth rates, the United Nations expects the Earth’s population, currently at 8.2 billion, to grow for another 50 to 60 years.

But back to Elon Musk and his Aug 24 tweet, which has been viewed over 7.3 million times.

Mr Musk reposted a tweet from an account called @XFreeze, an anonymous poster whom the billionaire interacts with frequently.

On Aug 24, @XFreeze posted a short video summary from another account, @3MusicTv, of PM Wong’s NDR announcements from childcare leave to direct financial support to housing, and so on.

“Singapore just went all in on birth rates. Fertility fell to a record-low 0.87 in 2025… That’s not just a dip. That’s a whole country nowhere near replacing itself. It's a massive problem for the country. 

So Singapore is going directly after the biggest things making parenthood harder: money, time, childcare and housing,” wrote @XFreeze, going on to list in detail the new support measures.

They added: “Cash alone was never going to fix collapsing birth rates. Singapore is attacking the actual friction around having children: the cost, the time, childcare and getting a home. If you want people to have more children, make having children easier. Singapore is actually trying that.”

However, when Mr Musk shared the post, his only caption was that humans are disappearing, a highly alarmist commentary that, as can be expected, brought about similar gloomy predictions from those who are like-minded.

Nevertheless, some X users endeavoured to push back against Mr Musk’s pronouncement.

“World population size of humans has typically been under 10 million throughout evolutionary history. Humans now number over 8 billion. Population is projected to peak at over 10 billion in the 2080s. Radical life-extension technologies promise to raise population size further,” wrote one.

Others suggested that Mr Musk use his massive wealth to help address population decline.

The billionaire is himself a father of 14. /TISG

Read also: Elon Musk tweets that Singapore & other countries are “going extinct”