Elon Musk gives two-word reply to Hungary’s new tax relief for mothers

Hungary recently announced new tax exemptions for women as part of efforts to boost the country’s birth rate. In his State of the Nation address in Budapest, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán outlined the policy, stating that women who have one child will be exempt from income tax until the age of 30, while those with two or more children will be exempt for life. Hungarian authorities described the move as a “global sensation” and a “new chapter” in the country’s economic history. The initiative expands an existing policy that grants lifelong income tax exemptions to mothers with four or more children.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk responded to the announcement on X (formerly Twitter), endorsing the policy. Quoting a post by Visegrád 24, Musk wrote, “Good idea.”

Musk has previously voiced concerns about declining birth rates, calling it one of the biggest risks to civilization. He has repeatedly urged governments to take measures to address population decline, arguing that economic and technological progress depend on maintaining stable population growth.

Recently, Musk raised concern about South Korea’s declining population. He sounded the alarm replying to a post on social media platform X (earlier Twitter) that included a screenshot from an article discussing the population decline in South Korea. The X post to which Musk replied includes a screenshot from an article where an highlighted portion reads: “In South Korea, where the total fertility rate is the lowest in the world at 0.68, every 200 fertile-age adults can expect to give life to 68 children; those children will produce 23 grandchildren, who will result in only eight great-grandchildren. That's a 96 percent population decline over the course of three generations, and that's if fertility stops decreasing and finally holds steady.”
While sharing this screenshot, the X user said: “This is such an insane thing to visualise”. Responding to this, Musk wrote: “Catastrophic population collapse.”