ROME (LifeSiteNews) — Elon Musk met with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome to discuss the problem of declining birth rates, as well as artificial intelligence.
The Italian prime minister shared a photo on Twitter of the two at their meeting on June 15 and wrote in Italian that “[i]t was a very fruitful meeting and a very cordial moment where we discussed some crucial topics: innovation, opportunities and risks of artificial intelligence, European market regulations and birth rates.”
Both Musk and Meloni in the past have expressed their concern over low fertility rates.
The majority-owner of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter has repeatedly warned that the problem of low birth rates could lead to civilizational collapse.
“There is a life cycle arc to civilization just as there is to individual humans,” Musk told Tucker Carlson in a recent interview. “That’s, for example, why I’m concerned about decreasing birth rates and the fact that, for example, Japan had twice as many deaths last year as births.”
READ: Japanese PM warns country it faces social collapse because of falling birth rate
Musk also rightly identified contraception and abortion as the main causes of the drop in birth rates over the past decades.
“In the past, we could rely upon, you know, simple limbic system rewards in order to procreate, but once you have birth control, and, you know, abortions and whatnot, now you can still satisfy the limbic instinct but not procreate,” the business mogul said. “So, we haven’t yet evolved to deal with that because this is all fairly recent in the last 50 years or so … for birth control.”
“I’m sort of worried that, hey, civilization … if we don’t make enough people to at least sustain our numbers, perhaps increase a little bit, then civilization is going to crumble,” the eccentric billionaire stated.
Musk — who has 10 children himself from several relationships, some involving IVF or surrogacy — has spoken out on the issue many times before and has encouraged people to have more children.
The billionaire entrepreneur has also specifically spoken about the exceptionally low birth rate in Italy, stating in a tweet in May 2022 that “Italy will have no people if these trends continue.”
Likewise, Meloni has expressed her concern about the plummeting birth rates in Italy, most recently at a conference in Rome with Pope Francis.
At the conference, the Italian prime minister said that her government has “dedicated a department to birth rates” to “address the great crises, among which the demographic one is undeniable.”
She added that “children are the cornerstone of building any future” and stressed that “natality is the priority of our action so that Italy returns to have hope in the future.”
“We want to give Italians back a country where being fathers and mothers is a socially recognized value and not a private matter,” the Italian prime minister stated. “A nation where having a child is a beautiful thing, which does not take anything away from you and does not prevent you from anything and which gives you a lot. For decades, the dominant culture has told us otherwise. I think it’s time to reverse the trend.”