Elon Musk tweets Japan ‘will eventually cease to exist’, provoking anger – but not just at him

Japan’s population peaked in 2008 and has been in decline ever since, fuelled by the country’s stubbornly low birth rate

Musk’s tweet hit a nerve among some Japan watchers, but many Japanese agreed – blaming their government for not doing enough to fight the decline

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Elon Musk tweeted that Japan would “eventually cease to exist” unless the country’s birthrate increased. Photo: Reuters

Published: 2:13pm, 9 May 2022Updated: 9:48am, 10 May 2022

An Elon Musk tweet saying Japan would “eventually cease to exist” without a higher birth rate set off a flood of sarcasm and anger on Monday – though much of the angst was aimed at a Japanese government many said did little to address the issue.

Musk, the head of electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc, at the weekend tweeted, “At risk of stating the obvious, unless something changes to cause the birth rate to exceed the death rate, Japan will eventually cease to exist. This would be a great loss for the world.”

The comment hit a nerve among Japan watchers and in Japan, whose population peaked in 2008 and has declined since – due to its low birth rate – to about 125 million as of last year, despite government warnings and sporadic attempts to grapple with the issue.

But Japan remains the world’s third-largest economy, host to global heavyweights ranging from car manufacturers to games developers, and is a key link in global semiconductor supply chains.

“What is even the point of tweeting this?” wrote Tobias Harris, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

“The anxieties surrounding Japan’s demographic future is not that ‘Japan will eventually cease to exist’ but rather the profound social dislocations that are occurring as a result of the decline to a lower population level.”

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