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When auditors were tasked with investigating how external contractors were awarded they found that in 2015 up €100 million had been spent but only €2.2 million was declared. Investigators found a similar pattern in 2016 with von der Leyen's ministry spending €150 million while declaring expenditure amounting to €2.9 million. Further questions have been raised on why lucrative contracts were awarded to the global consulting giant McKinsey & Company, where von der Leyen's son works as an associate, and whether there was a conflict of interest in the decision-making process. A powerful investigative committee in Germany is looking into contracts awarded when von der Leyden was defense minister, potentially tainting her new role as the political figurehead of the EU.

In the late 18th century, British thinker Robert Thomas Malthus proposed a theory that has come to be known as the "Malthusian trap." This theory posits that when the human population increases, famine, and environmental destruction will soon follow. Malthus argued that population would always outstrip food supply because the population would grow at exponential rates whereas food supply could only grow at what he called arithmetic rates. Malthus's theory was based on a number of faulty assumptions. First, he failed to recognize that crops and livestock are also populations. They can also be exponentially increased at the same time as the human population is growing. Second, Malthus assumed that human populations grow at uniform rates when in reality they grow in fits and starts. Finally, he failed to account for technological advances that have made it possible to increase food production at a rate that far outpaces population growth.