The rise of pronatalist tech bros

For Elon Musk, declining global fertility rates are "not just a crisis, but the crisis", said Bloomberg. In 2022, the multi-billionaire X and Tesla owner tweeted that "a collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces, by far" including that posed by global warming.

His solution – to father more children – is part of a growing trend among other Silicon Valley "bros" towards a controversial brand of "pronatalism". Musk, the world's richest person, has fathered at least 12 children with three mothers, while billionaire founder of the Telegram messaging service, Pavel Durov, revealed that a sperm donation he made to a fertility clinic had resulted in children conceived in 12 countries by more than 100 couples.

A social imperative

For the pronatalist movement, having many children is "not an individual choice, but a societal imperative", wrote Luke Munn, a digital cultures expert from the University of Queensland, on The Conversation. Higher birth rates "are necessary to maintain population levels, support economic growth, and preserve cultural and national identities".

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

It has "strong links" to effective altruism, a movement tied to Silicon Valley and elite schools, which uses "evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit as many people as possible", and long-termism, "which insists our long-term future is the key moral priority".

Due to its appeal to diverse political and ideological strands, pronatalism has found fans among "a loose confederation of religious conservatives, libertarian techies and blogger bros", said Bloomberg. Supporters broadly share the aim of incentivising parenthood from an economic and political standpoint, but for Silicon Valley pronatalists in particular the rationale and objectives are somewhat different.

Genetic largesse

Many of these Silicon Valley elites find themselves in the "emerging class of right-wing progressives who view technology as the natural solution to and means of childbearing itself", said Emma Waters, from the Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at The Heritage Foundation.

These entrepreneurs "tend to promote, in practice if not in speech, a selective pronatalism: more babies of a certain kind". Elon Musk is also among a growing number of Silicon Valley investors in fertility technology and research who are "looking for a way to reverse reproductive ageing, overcome infertility, and optimize child selection", said Waters. The goal here is not necessarily saving the world – or even America – from demographic decline, but of "ensuring that their future children are the healthiest, smartest, and best potential children they can be".

They may talk about saving humankind, but their genetic largesse is down to a "mix of narcissism, altruism and dreams of immortality", said the Financial Times. "Some may also believe their genes are more valuable than most and that exceptionalism can (and must!) be passed down."