Big families sound great, Elon Musk. But who’s going to take care of the kids? | Catherine Bennett

The entrepreneur, father of six, says we all need to have more babies to save civilisation. There might be some downsides...

Six children, seven - it could sound like a lot to take on. But the rocket and car entrepreneur and father of six Elon Musk, says it is imperative that humankind follows his example - likewise that of Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg - and puts population maintenance first. There are not enough people," Musk told a US business audience last week. I can't emphasise this enough, there are not enough people."

He was renewing his warning that advocates of smaller families, among them Britain's prime minister and Prince Harry, have got it wrong. Harry received an award not long ago for pledging to have no more than two children. Before that, Johnson, whose growing family is still believed to be in single figures, spotted that the primary challenge facing our species" is people like himself. From a plane window, he wrote: You have a horrifying vision of habitations multiplying and replicating like bacilli in a petri dish."