Elon Musk: One Planet Is a Risk—We Must Become Multiplanetary

Elon Musk: If something unexpected happens and we only have one planet, that could be curtains for humanity.

“Any given civilization is likely to last maybe 10 times longer, maybe much longer if it is a multiplanet civilization than if it is a single-planet civilization.

Because there's always some chance that, you know, us humans could do something crazy like World War III. Hopefully not, but it's possible. Or that there could be some natural event like meteors or super volcanoes or something that we don't expect and then if we only have one planet, then that could be curtains.

But if we have two planets, we keep going and then we go beyond Mars ultimately to maybe the asteroid belt, the moons of Jupiter and beyond, and ultimately to other star systems and we can be out there among the stars, making science fiction no longer fiction.”

From: SpaceX Update, May 29, 2025