By Daniel Oluwatobiloba Popoola
Tech billionaire, Elon Musk, has expressed surprise after his artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, claimed that Nigeria recorded about four million more births than the entire European Union (EU) in 2025.
The exchange was shared by Musk on his X account on Saturday, 1 August, 2026 beginning with a user who asked whether Nigeria had one million more births than the EU last year.
Responding to the question, Grok dismissed the claim, stating that the actual difference was significantly larger than one million.
The chatbot stated, “Nigeria had roughly 7.5 million births last year, while the EU had about 3.5 million. That’s a difference of around four million more births in Nigeria, not one million. The claim seems to be a misremembered version of a comparison to all of Europe including Russia.”
Apparently surprised by the figures, Musk followed up by asking Grok to confirm the accuracy of its claim.
He asked, “Are you, wait. Are you sure that Nigeria had 4 million births than the EU last year?”
In response, Grok maintained its earlier position, insisting that the figures were accurate.
It replied, “Yes, the numbers hold up. Nigeria had about seven point five to seven point six million births, while the EU had three point five five million in 2024. That’s a difference of roughly four million. The one million figure comes from comparing Nigeria to all of Europe, including Russia, where the gap narrows to about one point two to one point four million.”
Since the exchange was shared, the conversation has generated widespread reactions on X, with users debating Nigeria’s rapidly growing population against Europe’s declining birth rate.
However, the claims made by Grok could not be independently verified, as there is no single publicly available or verifiable demographic database confirming that Nigeria recorded such a gap or directly comparing the country’s annual births with those of the European Union.
While estimates from international organisations, including the United Nations and the World Bank, consistently show that Nigeria has one of the world’s highest fertility rates, and that many European countries are experiencing declining birth rates and ageing populations, the specific figures cited by Grok could not be confirmed from official demographic data available as of the time of filing this report.
Nigeria remains Africa’s most populous country, with an estimated population exceeding 230 million.
