Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, has made news once more, this time as Elon Musk welcomes his 12th child. The child was born earlier this year as a result of Musk's relationship with Neuralink Corp.'s director of special projects, Shivon Zilis.

Musk rejected reports that he kept the child's birth a secret while confirming its existence. He clarified, saying in a statement to Page Six, "As for 'secretly fathered,' that is also false. All our friends and family know. Failure to issue a press release, which would be bizarre, does not mean ‘secret.' "

Twelve children in all six with his first wife, Justine Wilson, and three with Canadian musician Grimes are of the tech billionaire.

Elon Musk welcomes his 12th child
Image Source: Wikipedia

The Canadian Zilis and Musk are already parents to twins, Strider and Azure, who were born in November 2021. Musk has a tremendous family history.

In 2002, Nevada, his first kid, tragically passed away from SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). He was married to Canadian author Justine Wilson from 2000 to 2008, and the two had twins named Griffin and Vivian. X Æ A-12, the musician Grimes' son, was born in 2020. The following year they welcomed daughter Exa Dark Siderael (commonly known as Y). They later welcomed Techno Mechanicus in 2023.

Elon Musk has long expressed worries about the world's fertility rates. He tweeted in 2022, "Doing my best to help the underpopulation crisis. A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far." Even though there are approximately eight billion people on the planet, the rate of population increase is decreasing overall. Numerous affluent nations, including Canada, have seen a decrease in birth rates.

Musk has publicly expressed his opinion that the threat to society posed by low birth rates is bigger than that posed by global warming. He has maintained that there is a serious hazard since many nations are already much below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman.

As for population decline, few academics agree with Musk's perspective. Demographers stress that even with declining birth rates relative to earlier eras, global population growth continues, despite dips in some countries, suggesting no impending collapse. The population of the planet is still increasing and probably will be until the end of the century.

Reduced birth rates, according to some experts, can benefit society in ways like better living circumstances and higher wages since they require less labour. They also point out that immigration is contributing to population increase, with high-income nations witnessing higher immigration-related population growth than domestic birth rates.

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