A Washington Post opinion editor cited Elon Musk's "skeevy approach to parenthood" to argue that the tech entrepreneur and father of 14 is not all that good with numbers.
David Von Drehle recounted a "copiously documented report in the Wall Street Journal" about Musk's desire to populate the planet that led to his lightbulb moment.
Musk's "growing concern that only an army of paid surrogates can produce enough of his babies to populate the 'legion' required to stave off the 'apocalypse" was one big red flag, according to Von Drehle.
"To think that one dumpy 53-year-old nerd is called by fate to stem the demographic tide of humankind is … bad math, to say the least," Von Drehle wrote. "Suppose Musk and his fantasy army of surrogates begin producing 10 children per day, every day, until he’s 80, 26 years from now."
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Von Drehle added, "Yuck — sorry to paint that picture. But also: Those efforts would produce fewer babies, total (almost 95,000), than will be born between midnight tonight and tomorrow at 7 a.m. (about 105,000)."
In addition, "Others who have followed Musk’s obsession with travel to Mars are already aware of his trouble with concepts such as distance and time," Von Drehle wrote.
"The innumeracy of Elon Musk would be a matter between him, his investors, his breeding partners and their offspring — but for his involvement in the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which has sown chaos across the federal government in pursuit of savings he seems unable to count," Von Drehle wrote. "His initial promise of $2 trillion in cuts has already deflated to $150 billion, meaning he was off by a factor of 13-plus in the space of a few months."
Von Drehle concluded that Musk is no math genius, and doesn't understand "that what he is saying just doesn’t add up."