One of the world's richest men is worried that Italians could become extinct due to the world's lowest birth-rates.

If these trends continue, Italy will have no people, according to Musk. The Rome-based cyber security researcher had published a demographic trend chart showing birth-rate falling for decades.

Italy reported its lowest birth-rate in history last year, with one child per woman. Istat said that Italy had seven newborns and twelve deaths per thousand inhabitants. The country's population will drop by 20% by 2070, due to Covid mortality.

Italy's population is expected to fall by 20% by 2070.

Istat, Nov. 2021.

Musk is familiar with the low birth-rate topic.

Most people think we have too many people on the planet. At the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai in the year 2019, Musk said that this is an outdated view. Jack Ma is the chairman. The biggest problem the world will face in the next 20 years is a population collapse, he had said.

With help from Giovanni Salzano.

(Updates with further reading in final paragraph. An earlier version of this story corrected a date in the third paragraph)