Billionaire Elon Musk reiterated his potential global population collapse warning as the world's most populous country reported its first decline in recent years.
What Happened: Musk on Wednesday took to Twitter to once again warn his followers of the declining world population as China's headcount shrank for the first time in six decades last year.
Musk, while replying to American internet entrepreneur Jason Calacanis' tweet about China, wrote, "Population collapse is a massive danger to the future of civilization!"
Musk's comments were prompted by Beijing's national data, which showed the Asian nation had 1.41 billion people at the end of last year, 850,000 fewer than in 2021.
See Also: Elon Musk's Warning Ahead Of Fed's Feb. 1 Decision: 'Higher The Rates, Harder They Fall'
The data released by the National Statistics Bureau on Tuesday showed the first drop since 1961 – the final year of the Great Famine under former leader Mao Zedong.
In 2022, about 9.5 million babies were born, down from 10.62 million during the same period in 2021. That number is the lowest since at least 1950, despite Xi Jinping's government encouraging families to have more children.
China's death rate also climbed, with a total of 10.41 million deaths in 2022, up from around 10 million recorded in recent years.
In August last year, Musk warned that "population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming." In a podcast, he said, "people are living longer, that's the only reason why the population of Earth isn't plummeting."
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