Birthrates in much of the developed world are at record lows, but there’s one demographic group that’s exploring new frontiers of fertility: ultrawealthy men. Deploying nearly limitless resources, a small number of them are reproducing at such an extraordinary scale and pace that they’re exploding previous notions of what a family is. At a moment when so many people say they feel priced out of having even one child, these adventures in prolific fatherhood are emerging as a stark example of inequality made flesh.

发达国家大部分地区的出生率正处于历史新低，但有一个人口群体却正在探索生育的新前沿：超级富豪男性。凭借近乎无限的资源，这个极小的群体正在以如此惊人的规模和速度繁衍后代，以至于彻底打破了以往对家庭的定义。在许多人表示连养活一个孩子都感到捉襟见肘的时刻，他们在批量产子之路上的高歌猛进正在成为一种刺眼的不平等具象化。

Numerous reports have landed in recent years about men using reproductive technology to produce dozens of offspring. The billionaire developer Stefan Soloviev has 22 children, some conceived through clinical methods. Pavel Durov, the billionaire Russian founder of the messaging platform Telegram, said his sperm donations had produced over 100 children. The disgraced American insurance tycoon Greg Lindberg undertook what he called a “baby project” that reportedly involved duping models into donating their eggs to him as he expanded his brood to at least 12, and the even more disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein told a scientist that he wanted to spread his DNA by impregnating as many as 20 surrogates at a time with his sperm. Some very rich Chinese men, The Wall Street Journal reported, have sought the assistance of American surrogacy agencies to sire staggering numbers of children: The founder of one network of fertility clinics said that one of these men expressed a desire to have more than 200 children at once. According to the South China Morning Post, the ex-partner of Xu Bo, another Chinese businessman, publicly accused him of having at least 300 children, a claim he has denied.

近年来，关于男性利用生殖技术孕育数十名后代的报道屡见不鲜。亿万富翁开发商斯蒂凡·索洛维耶夫(Stefan Soloviev)有22个孩子，其中一些是通过医疗方法受孕的。俄罗斯超级富豪、即时通讯平台Telegram的创始人帕维尔·杜罗夫曾表示，他捐出的精子已孕育了100多个孩子。身败名裂的美国保险大亨格雷格·林德伯格开展了一项他称之为“婴儿计划”的行动，据报道，该计划涉及诱骗模特向他捐赠卵子，从而将其子嗣扩大到至少12人；而更加名声狼藉的性罪犯杰弗里·爱泼斯坦曾告诉一名科学家，他想通过用自己的精子一次让多达20名代孕母亲同时受孕来传播自己的DNA。据《华尔街日报》报道，一些非常富有的中国男性曾寻求美国代孕机构的协助，以繁衍数量惊人的孩子：一家生育诊所网络的创始人表示，其中一名男性表达了想要一次拥有200多个孩子的想法。据《南华早报》报道，另一位中国商人徐波的前伴侣公开指责他有至少300个孩子，但他对此予以了否认。

And, of course, there is Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. With a mere 14 known children by four women, his output may seem tame by comparison with some megafathers, but his influence is larger than the sum of his offspring. He was cited as a role model when he was a paltry megabillionaire. Now that he has entered the realm of the trillionaire, his actions are likely to reverberate even more. He is reported to have told one of his children’s mothers he wants to use surrogates to “reach legion level.” In the meantime, he has goaded the competition. In response to a post about Mr. Durov notching triple-digit offspring, Mr. Musk replied, “‘Rookie numbers lmao’ — Genghis Khan,” a nod to the Mongol leader’s supposed millions of descendants.

当然，还有世界首富埃隆·马斯克。他仅与四名女性育有14个为人所知的孩子，与某些“超级父亲”相比，他的产出可能相形见绌，但他的影响力却远超其子嗣的数量。他在还只是一个普通的超级亿万富翁时就被奉为了榜样。如今，随着他迈入万亿美元富豪的行列，他的举动很可能会产生更大的回响。据报道，他曾告诉他其中一个孩子的母亲，他想利用代孕来“达到军团级别”。与此同时，他还向竞争对手发出了调侃。在回应一条关于杜罗夫有三位数子嗣的帖子时，马斯克回复道：“‘菜鸟数字，笑死我了’——成吉思汗”，以此向这位据传拥有数百万后代的蒙古领袖致敬。

What drives these men to reproduce at an industrial scale? Mr. Musk’s reference to Genghis Khan holds one clue. Each man presumably has his unique motivations, and the instinct to donate your sperm far and wide may differ from the desire to create a compound full of your progeny and their mothers, but they seem united in one thing: Like kings of earlier eras who claimed divine lineage, many of these men hold their own bloodlines in exalted regard. Mr. Musk, who in 2021 changed his job title at Tesla to “technoking,” has said he wants smart people — or even just rich people, according to a report in Business Insider — to have more children. One of the mothers of his offspring, an executive in his business, told his biographer that he encouraged her to have kids and suggested he be her sperm donor.

是什么驱动这些男性以工业化的规模去繁衍后代？马斯克提及成吉思汗提供了一个线索。每个人想必都有其独特的动机，广泛捐献精子的本能可能也不是为了打造一个住满自己后代和他们母亲的大宅，但他们似乎在有一点上是共通的：正如早期宣称自己拥有神圣血统的帝王一样，这些男性中的许多人对自己的血脉抱有崇高的敬意。马斯克在2021年将自己在特斯拉的职位名称改为了“技术王(technoking)”，据《商业内幕》的一篇报道称，他曾表示他希望聪明人——或者只是有钱人——生更多的孩子。他其中一个孩子的母亲（也是他企业中的一名高管）告诉他的传记作者，马斯克曾鼓励她生孩子，并建议由他来担任她的精子捐献者。

Mr. Epstein was reportedly inspired by the short-lived Repository for Germinal Choice, a sperm bank that was reputed to have Nobel laureates among its donors. Mr. Durov, who frequently posts shirtless images of his chiseled upper body on social media, said his sperm was “high-quality donor material.” These men appear to view distributing their DNA as a gift to humankind, a philanthropic act of genetic optimization that will benefit generations to come.

据报道，爱泼斯坦受到了曾短暂存在的“生殖选择库”(Repository for Germinal Choice)的启发，该精子库曾因其捐献者中包括了诺贝尔奖得主而闻名。经常在社交媒体上用上身赤裸照片展示自己的雕像般身材的杜罗夫则表示，他的精子是“高质量的捐献材料”。这些男性似乎将传播自己的DNA视为对人类的一种馈赠，一项将造福子孙后代的基因优化慈善之举。

Monarchs also saw children as tools, proof of their legitimacy and means by which to forge alliances through marriage. Today’s most productive patriarchs speak of their children in similarly instrumental terms — sons to be the heirs to their business empires, daughters to be strategically married off to powerful men, babies to be the siblings the father never had or just bodies to stave off population collapse.

君主们同样将子嗣视为工具，既是其统治合法性的证明，也是通过联姻巩固联盟的手段。如今最多产的男性族长在谈及他们的孩子时也使用了类似的功利主义语调——儿子用来继承他们的商业帝国，女儿用来战略性地嫁给权势人物，婴儿用来充当父亲从未拥有过的兄弟姐妹，或者仅仅是用来延缓人口崩溃的肉躯。

This particular story would not have been possible, however, in some long-ago era of crowns and castles. Kings had consorts and concubines aplenty, but they were limited by biological constraints. Technokings, on the other hand, can use assisted reproductive technologies and multiple simultaneous surrogates to create webs of siblings born within months of one another.

然而，在很久以前那个王冠与城堡的时代，这样的故事是不可能发生的。国王们固然有三宫六院、妃嫔无数，但他们受到生理极限的制约。相反，“技术王”们却可以使用辅助生殖技术和多名代孕母亲打造出生时间仅相隔几个月的庞大兄弟姐妹网。

In vitro fertilization doesn’t just allow one man to produce multiple pregnancies in parallel; it allows him to exercise a measure of control over their outcomes, such as specifying a baby’s sex or even selecting an embryo based on its risk of disease — quality control, you might say, for a human factory. One egg donor participating in Mr. Lindberg’s baby project reported that its patron told her he “wanted 12 blond-haired, blue-eyed boys.” Mr. Epstein’s emails reveal a similar obsession with blue eyes. The Information reported that Mr. Musk has used polygenic embryo screening, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars and purports to enable parents to choose embryos based on desired genetic profiles.

体外受精(IVF)不仅允许一名男性并行制造多次怀孕；它还允许他对繁衍的结果实施一定程度的控制，例如指定婴儿的性别，甚至根据疾病风险来筛选胚胎——你可能会说，这是人类工厂的质量控制。参与林德伯格“婴儿计划”的一名卵子捐献者称，其资助人告诉她，他“想要12个金发碧眼的男孩”。爱泼斯坦的电子邮件也透露出对蓝眼睛有类似的痴迷。《The Information》报道称，马斯克使用了多基因胚胎筛查技术，这种筛查可能耗资数万美元，据称能让父母根据期望的基因图谱来选择胚胎。

Most of the reproductive technologies these men are using have been around for a few decades. What’s new is the impulse to use them in such bizarrely self-glorifying ways while buying one’s way out of any inconvenient constraints that other clients might encounter. It is a distinctive product of this era in which the wealthiest few can use essentially limitless wealth to buy essentially limitless power. I’ve spoken to middle-class fertility patients who borrow money or apply to charities to cover the cost of I.V.F. to have just one desperately wanted child. Men this rich easily produce scores of them, even at a price of $200,000 or more for surrogacy and donor eggs, and can then casually outsource the demands of bringing them up.

这些男性正在使用的大多数生殖技术其实已经存在了数十年。新鲜的地方在于，有人会以如此怪异且自我神化的方式去使用它们，同时用金钱摆脱了其他客户可能会遇到的任何不便限制。这是这个时代独特的产物，在这个时代，极少数最富有的人可以利用近乎无限的财富来购买近乎无限的权力。我曾与一些中产阶级的生育患者交谈过，他们通过借钱或向慈善机构申请资助来支付体外受精的费用，仅仅是为了拥有一个极度渴望的孩子。而如此富有的男性却能轻而易举地孕育数十个孩子，即使代孕和捐赠卵子的价格高达20万美元或更多，然后他们还可以轻描淡写地将抚养这些孩子的需求外包出去。

The capacity to alchemize money and sperm in this manner has turned an ordinary and beautiful event, the creation of a child, into a kind of acquisition frenzy. It has also produced a windfall for the businesses willing to rev up production and customize children to their clients’ specifications. The owner of one U.S. surrogacy agency told The Journal he had helped to “fill an order” for 100 babies for a wealthy Chinese client. Mr. Durov has covered the cost of I.V.F. for Russian women at a Moscow fertility clinic that stores his sperm. Two American fertility clinics, one in Los Angeles and one in Chicago, seemed happy to help Mr. Lindberg execute his baby project, together treating at least 19 of his egg donors and surrogates.

以这种方式将金钱和精子点石成金的能力已经令孕育生命这一平凡而美好的事变得仿佛商场扫货。它还为那些愿意开足马力生产并根据客户要求定制儿童的企业带来了一笔意外之财。一家美国代孕机构的所有者告诉《华尔街日报》，他曾协助一位富有的中国客户“填了一份100个婴儿的订单”。莫斯科一家生育诊所储存了杜罗夫的精子，他在那里为多名俄罗斯女性支付了体外受精费用。两家美国生育诊所（分别位于洛杉矶和芝加哥）似乎非常乐意协助林德伯格执行他的“婴儿计划”，总共为他的至少19名卵子捐献者和代孕母亲提供了治疗。

Engaging with the fertility industry, whether as patients or clients, can turn out very differently for women, especially those who lack the same extravagant means. A Times investigation found that Thai women lured to Georgia to be surrogates might have had their eggs extracted without their consent. Here in this country, a surrogate who had a stillbirth was doxxed and sued by the wealthy woman who had hired her, according to reporting in Wired.

无论作为患者还是客户，涉足生育产业对女性来说结果可能会截然不同，尤其是那些缺乏同等财力的女性。《纽约时报》的一项调查发现，被诱骗到格鲁吉亚充当代孕母亲的泰国女性可能在未经其知情同意的情况下被抽取了卵子。在美国本土，据《连线》杂志报道，一名出现死产的代孕母亲被雇佣她的富有女性网暴和起诉。

Then there are the children. The New Yorker recently detailed disturbing allegations of child abuse and neglect by a Los Angeles-based couple who had commissioned roughly two dozen babies from surrogates.

接下来受到冲击的是孩子们。《纽约客》最近详细报道了关于洛杉矶一对夫妇涉嫌虐待和忽视儿童的令人触目惊心的指控，这对夫妇曾通过代孕订购了二十多个婴儿。

These billionaire megafathers, by contrast, have the cultural and political winds at their backs. Tech-bro philosophers have mounted sophisticated-sounding defenses of aristocratic rule, eugenics and selective breeding, providing intellectual cover or even moral justification for the billionaires’ unorthodox paternal pursuits. And leaders around the world have gone to sometimes comical lengths to encourage their citizens to have more children.

相比之下，这些亿万富翁超级父亲却有文化和政治趋势的加持。科技圈的极客哲学家们为贵族统治、优生学和选择性育种炮制了听起来充满高级感的辩护，为这些亿万富翁不合常理的为人父追求提供了智识掩护乃至道德正当性。世界各地的领导人们有时也采取了近乎滑稽的手段来鼓励其公民生育更多的孩子。

All of this suggests it is unlikely that wealthy men will face any meaningful restrictions on how they can use assisted reproductive technologies. Nor is it clear what accountability looks like in regards to the children who have been born, some of whom have been placed in foster care. Mr. Lindberg kept his baby project going even while locked up on a bribery conviction, apparently with little thought to the well-being of the infants who were soon to be born. “How are we going to pay for the nannies, etc. for these babies when they get here?” one of his employees asked a colleague, Bloomberg reported.

这一切都表明，富豪们不太可能在如何使用辅助生殖技术方面面临任何实质性的限制。对于那些已经出生的孩子，目前也并不清楚该如何落实抚养责任，他们中的一些人已经被送往了寄养家庭。林德伯格甚至在因行贿罪入狱期间仍继续维持着他的“婴儿计划”，显然极少考虑那些即将出生的婴儿的福祉。据彭博社报道，他的一名员工曾询问同事：“等这些孩子来了，我们要怎么支付保姆之类的费用？”

When Mr. Xu, the man whose ex-partner accused him of having 300 children, spoke via videoconference with an American family court judge in the summer of 2023, he had not even bothered to meet several of his children. They were being raised by nannies in Irvine, Calif., while they waited for the documents to travel to China. He explained to the judge, who was evaluating a number of surrogacy petitions in his name, that work had been busy. (You know how it is.) There is little care, nurturing or love in these stories; there is mostly head count and optimization.

2023年夏天，当被前伴侣指责有300个孩子的徐先生通过视频会议与美国一家庭法院法官对话时，他甚至都懒得去见见自己的几个孩子。这些孩子当时正由加利福尼亚州尔湾市的保姆抚养，等待着前往中国的旅行文件。他向正在评估几份以他名义提交的代孕申请的法官解释说，工作一直很忙。（你知道那是怎么回事。）在这些故事中，几乎看不到关怀、哺育或爱，绝大多数只是人头数和优化。

An overwhelming majority of people who avail themselves of fertility services do so without abusing them. It is apparently only a few men of extreme wealth who are using them in ways that were never intended, to build not families but legions of bespoke children. The fertility sector could surely benefit from more oversight, but the richest among us will always have ways to circumvent laws that don’t suit them. We should also focus on reining in the extraordinary inequality that has given rise to a kingly class of men so powerful, they believe they can remake the world in their genetic image.

绝大多数利用生育服务的人并没有滥用它。显而易见，只有极少数极端富有的男性在以违背初衷的方式使用这些技术，他们并非是要组建家庭，而是为了批量生产定制子女。监管固然能给生育行业带来改善，但我们当中最富有的人总能找到方法去规避不适合他们的法律。我们还应当把注意力集中在遏制导致了君王般男性阶层崛起的极端不平等上，这些人如此强大，以至于相信自己可以用其基因形象来重塑世界。