Why Elon Musk Sees 1 Million People on Mars by the 2040s

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Why Elon Musk Sees 1 Million People on Mars by the 2040s
The billionaire SpaceX CEO tasked scientists with designing domes and 
researching procreation with an eye towards colonizing the Red Planet.
BY CHLOE AIELLO, REPORTER @CHLOBO_ILO
JUL 11, 2024
Elon Musk.
Elon Musk. Photos: Getty Images
Elon Musk's interplanetary ambitions are reportedly still going strong.

The billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is ramping up plans for 
mankind's arrival to Mars and then the planet's colonization, according 
to a report from The New York Times. And on the back of successful tests 
of his new Starship rocket and a massive pay bump at Tesla, he 
reportedly believes it's all possible in about 20 years.

"There's high urgency to making life multi-planetary," he said, 
according to The New York Times. "We've got to do it while civilization 
is so strong."

One SpaceX employee told the Times that Musk said in April he 
anticipates some one million people could live on the Red Planet in 
about two decades. Musk has earned a reputation for setting ambitious 
timelines with projects and then failing to stick to them, such as the 
recently canceled dearMoon project with billionaire Yusaja Maezawa, 
originally slated for 2023; the accelerated launch of Tesla's Robotaxi, 
pushed back to an October unveiling; and more delayed initiatives, like 
the Cybertruck.

Still, he's making preparations for Mars. Musk has reportedly tasked 
SpaceX scientists with developing a host of new technologies for life in 
outer space. He has teams researching dome habitations, space suits, and 
even procreation in a potential Mars colony. One particularly graphic 
detail from people familiar with Musk's plans is that he offered his own 
sperm to help start the colony. Musk already has 12 children from three 
different mothers, The Daily Beast reported.

Musk is currently CEO of both SpaceX and electric vehicle company Tesla. 
He also founded tunneling venture the Boring Company and brain implant 
company Neuralink. He owns social media platform X, formerly Twitter, 
and is also working on an artificial intelligence company, meant to be 
an OpenAI competitor. Critics have questioned whether Musk's diversified 
business interests pose a conflict of interest--especially a recent 
maneuver where he allocated Nvidia AI chips, originally meant for Tesla 
to X. But what unifies many of these endeavors are his plans for Mars, 
according to the Times report.

The Times reported, for example, that Musk purchased X to research 
consensus-driven governments of the sort he envisions on Mars. SpaceX 
president and COO Gwynne Shotwell mentioned shared learnings among 
Musk-run companies, telling CNBC in 2018 that "the Boring Company could 
be the way we house people on Mars. We'll have to dig tunnels for folks."

Furthermore, Musk has hinted in various social media posts throughout 
the years that a version of Tesla's stainless steel cybertruck could be 
sent into space on Starship or even used on Mars.

"Tesla Cybertruck (pressurized edition) will be official truck of Mars," 
he posted on social media platform X, then Twitter, in 2019.

When fighting for his recent, massive compensation package at Tesla, 
Musk even justified the roughly $50 billion pay package in court as 
helping to fund the creation of a Martian colony. Not only does Musk now 
have the additional resources he claimed he needed, but also his ride to 
Mars is closer to viability than ever. In June, SpaceX's Starship 
megarocket completed its first successful test flight. On its website, 
SpaceX describes Starship's future as carrying "up to 100 people on 
long-duration, interplanetary flights."

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