Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk says the ratio of adult diapers to baby diapers is a key figure when tracking population collapse.

What Happened: Touching on the longevity of the current population in a recent appearance on the “Full Send” podcast, Musk said, “People are living longer, that's the only reason why the population of Earth isn't plummeting.” 

Musk said the “metric to track” is the “ratio of adult diapers to baby diapers.”

“At what point does a country have more adult diapers than baby diapers,” asked Musk and pointed to Japan, which he said went “past that point” more than 10 years ago.

“A low birth rate is a slow death for a civilization. It’s not a fast death,” the entrepreneur said, and if the trend continues, “civilization will just die with a whimper in adult diapers.”

Reflecting on the anticlimactic possibility, he said, “I’d rather civilization went out with a bang than a whimper in adult diapers.” When asked what’s a bang, Musk said World War III.

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Why It Matters: Adult diaper production in Japan has risen from 5.81 billion to 8.66 billion between 2011 to 2020, according to Statista data. This is a rise of 49.05%.

However, in the same period, baby diaper production rose from 8.7 billion to 12.36 billion as well, according to Statista. This represents an increase of 42.07%.

Musk said overpopulation is a “myth” and said the world faces a “population collapse problem.” He said population collapse as the “biggest risk to civilization right now.”

Talking about the reasons behind the myth, Musk said though he was “pro-environment,” he thought “the environmentalist agenda has kinda gone too far on this.”

Musk said he has done his bit for reproduction. He told the podcast hosts that he had nine children via three “baby mothers.” He said he was “trying to set a good example by having a lot of kids.”

In June, the Tesla CEO said that babies don’t come from “some magical f****** people factory. They gotta come from somewhere and they take ages to grow.”

“We really got to turn this around and we’re going to have at least replacement rate if not more on the baby front,” said Musk on his recent podcast appearance.

TSLA Price Action: On Wednesday, Tesla shares closed 3.89% up at $883.07 and rose 0.2% in the after-hours trading, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

Read Next: Elon Musk Warns China On 'Population Collapse:' Each Generation Will Lose 40% Of People

Photo: Zety Akhzar via Shutterstock

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