Fertility Inc.: One Dad, One Hundred Babies

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Journal — Fertility Inc.: One Dad, One Hundred Babies (March 20, 2026)

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Episode Overview

In this gripping episode, hosts Ryan Knudsen and investigative reporter Katherine Long explore a mind-bending corner of the US fertility industry: ultra-wealthy individuals, particularly from China, using surrogacy to father staggering numbers of children—sometimes dozens, scores, or even an alleged hundred or more. The episode centers on one such case, tech entrepreneur Shu Bo, whose attempts to father 20+ children raised major legal and ethical questions. The discussion unveils the wider, lightly regulated “baby business” and the cultural, financial, and technological forces enabling these “mega families.”

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The US Surrogacy Landscape for International Clients

• Opening Case (00:05–02:02): LA court clerks were startled to find one man's name, Shu Bo, on an unusually high number of "parentage petitions" for children via surrogacy—at least 12 simultaneous or pending cases.
• International Demand (05:12–05:32): Nearly 40% of US surrogacies now serve international clients, with about 40% of those being Chinese.
• Barriers in China (05:32–05:53):
  • “Single women cannot get fertility treatment in China... and gays are not legally recognized.” (Nathan Zhang, 05:32)
• Why US? (05:53–06:07): The US offers top medical, legal, and logistical infrastructure for surrogacy, described as “the NBA in the basketball field.” (Nathan Zhang, 05:53)

2. Chinese Demand for Massive Families

• Rise of Mega Families (06:07–08:51):
  • Traditional motivations mix with the influence of business icons like Elon Musk.
  • “Elon Musk has 14 kids. I think it's a dramatic inspiration for Chinese businessmen.” (Nathan Zhang, 07:51)
  • Some clients request astonishing numbers: “[A] potential client… wanted 200 kids.” (Nathan Zhang, 08:13)
  • Zhang himself now limits clients to three kids each, citing responsibility: “You gotta be responsible.” (Nathan Zhang, 09:07)

3. A Lightly Regulated Industry

• Lack of Oversight (09:56–11:57):
  • No meaningful federal regulation exists, allowing wealthy clients to “order” as many babies as they desire, using complex international logistics and networks of surrogates, nannies, and service-providers.
  • Typical cost: “Well over $150,000... $200,000 is pretty typical.” (Katherine Long, 11:57)

4. The Case of Shu Bo

• Legal Red Flags Emerge (13:45–15:19):
  • L.A. judge Amy Pellman, alarmed by Bo's parentage petitions, holds a hearing.
  • Shu Bo, a video game mogul from China, states ambitions for up to 20 children—"all boys because they're superior to girls."
    • Notably, he admits having never visited his other surrogate-born kids, citing work (14:25–15:19).
  • The judge is “less than impressed,” and after the hearing denies his petitions—leaving the fate of the unborn children in legal limbo.

5. Social Media & Company Response

• Shu Bo’s company disputes all allegations, labeling WSJ a “rumor monger” and denying misogynistic remarks. They threaten a social media "campaign of retribution" against the reporters (15:23–16:00).

6. Inside the Mega Family

• Profiles & Videos (16:00–24:21):
  • Shu Bo runs Duo Yi Network and is a social media mega-poster, sometimes linked to misogynistic and inflammatory content.
  • Accounts tied to him detail ambitions for up to 50 “high quality sons” and admiration for Elon Musk’s family-building.
  • Videos show “more than 20 children,” with kids rushing to the camera, calling “Daddy, Daddy” (21:09–21:49).
  • Scenes of group play, meals, puzzles, and reciting verses offer a glimpse of life in these secretive, collective nurseries.

7. Legal and Ethical Questions

• Consequences of Denial (18:09–18:38):
  • Without parentage orders, the children’s legal fates are uncertain; they might end up in social services or foster care.
• Industry Self-Regulation (20:15–20:27):
  • Professional bodies only recommend—not require—caps on simultaneous surrogacies, lacking the force of law.
• Refile Loopholes (20:35–20:56):
  • Denied in one court, parents like Bo can often refile elsewhere and find more lenient jurisdictions.

8. Final Tallies & Outlandish Claims

• Ex-girlfriend claims Bo has fathered “over 300” children; his company says “only a little over a hundred” (24:21–24:41).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If people don’t have more children, civilization is going to crumble. Mark my words.”
  — Elon Musk (07:32)

• “At one point... [he] said that Shu Bo wanted to have 50 high quality sons... have children with Elon Musk... I guess I'll just have to settle for having grandchildren with him, I guess.”
  — Katherine Long (17:12)

• “[Surrogates] want to believe... the child they’re carrying is going to receive the full love and attention... To learn... the child... is going to be one of many comes as a real shock...”
  — Katherine Long (19:28)

• “What we know about extremely wealthy people is that they feel that their desires can be actualized with only a little money...”
  — Katherine Long (23:03)

• “We’ve reviewed the records and he has only a little over a hundred.”
  — Shu Bo's company (24:41)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• LA Court discovers Shu Bo case: 00:05–02:16
• Chinese families & surrogacy in the US: 05:12–07:19
• Elon Musk as inspiration: 07:32–07:51
• Requests for 100+ children: 08:08–08:51
• How the surrogacy process works: 10:08–11:45
• Cost of surrogacy: 11:57–12:07
• Judge Pellman’s hearing: 13:45–15:19
• Company response and social media activity: 15:23–16:25
• Video of 20+ children: 21:09–21:49
• Alleged final children count: 24:21–24:41

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Conclusion

The episode unpacks a stunning, ethically vexing facet of global surrogacy, raising critical questions about bioethics, regulation, parental responsibility, and the commodification of reproduction. It reveals a system easily exploited by the ultra-rich—especially in the absence of meaningful oversight—and leaves listeners confronting a world where “having a hundred children” is less sci-fi fantasy and more, perhaps, the new reality.

Next up: The Journal teases a follow-up on tech billionaires trying to genetically engineer babies.

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Transcript

[Ryan Knudsen]

It was 2023, and inside an LA family court clerks were working through some documents. They're what's known as parentage petitions. If you've enlisted a surrogate to carry your baby, then you need a judge to approve your parentage petition in order to actually take the baby home. It's basically the court saying, yes, this kid is legally yours.

[Katherine Long]

Once this child is born, you, the parents, have the parental rights to the child. You are clear to put your name on the birth certificate.

[Ryan Knudsen]

That's investigative reporter Katherine Long. And are these usually contentious petitions?

[Katherine Long]

No, typically these are, you know, I hesitate to say rubber stamped, but it's a fairly simple process.

[Ryan Knudsen]

But this time, the clerks noticed something. One name kept showing up over and over again.

[Katherine Long]

A man named Shu Bo had put his name on at least four applications for parental rights for children who were as yet unborn but were being carried by surrogates.

[Ryan Knudsen]

The same guy, Shu Bo, was applying for parental rights to at least four babies being carried by surrogates.

[Katherine Long]

The clerks thought that was a little strange. It's. It's not terribly common to have that many simultaneous surrogacies. They started poking around and they realized that in addition to those at least four children, Shubo already had or was in the process of having eight other children.

[Ryan Knudsen]

That's 12 kids total. 12 kids, all born via surrogacy, all with the same father. This sounds crazy.

[Katherine Long]

It was certainly unusual.

[Ryan Knudsen]

When Catherine and her colleagues started digging into the surrogacy industry, they got curious about one particular corner of that business, the corner that serves wealthy Chinese parents.

[Katherine Long]

When we started speaking with people who work in this corner of the surrogacy industry that caters to Chinese parents, something that we kept hearing was concerns about a small number of Chinese parents who seem to want to have extremely large numbers of children.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Think 10 children, 20 children even. I kid you not, 100 children.

[Katherine Long]

When I first heard about this, I thought this had to be an exaggeration. This had to be made up. But then we started looking into it and turned out to be true.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Welcome to the Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Ryan knudson. It's Friday, March 20th. Coming up, another story from our investigation into the fertility industry today. One dad, 100 babies.

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[Ryan Knudsen]

In many countries around the world, surrogacy is illegal, so international parents looking to have a baby this way often head to the U.S. these days, about 40% of U.S. surrogacies are for parents from abroad, and about 40% of those parents come from just one country, China.

[Nathan Zhang]

You got to understand the Chinese policy. Single women cannot get fertility treatment in China, you cannot do sex selection in China, and gays are not legally recognized in China.

[Ryan Knudsen]

That's Nathan Zhang. He runs a business that helps Chinese parents access the US Fertility industry, which many consider to be the best in the world.

[Nathan Zhang]

For the IV and fertility clinical side, US is like the NBA in the basketball field. That's the best players, physicians and lab technicians, biologists, and also the legal side.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Nathan's business is basically a concierge service. He hooks Chinese customers up with IVF clinics, egg donors, sperm banks, surrogacy agencies, and lawyers. When he got into the industry about 15 years ago, Nathan says he catered to a pretty niche demographic, rich Chinese business people who'd tried having kids the traditional way and failed. But more recently, he told me, his customer base has expanded. He sees more gay couples now, more single women, and more wealthy clients looking to build big families. So our colleagues have been reporting on this trend of Chinese customers, often who are very rich, who want lots of babies. Have you seen that in your business?

[Nathan Zhang]

Yeah, we saw a lot. Just actually traditional Chinese, you already have bigger Families and my grandparents. I have seven siblings on my father's side and my grandfather, my grandmother has like six siblings. But it just. That's the Chinese traditional culture.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Nathan says that while traditional Chinese culture might be a motivation for some of his clients, he suspects that some of his wealthiest customers are taking their cues from someone else. The wealthiest man in the world.

[Elon Musk]

If people don't have more children, civilization is going to crumble. Mark my words.

[Ryan Knudsen]

That's Elon Musk at a Wall Street Journal event a few years ago.

[Katherine Long]

Is this why you have so many children?

[Elon Musk]

I'm trying to set a good example. Yeah, you know, gotta practice what I preach.

[Nathan Zhang]

Elon Musk is a great. Is a model for the Chinese, especially for Chinese entrepreneur. Elon Musk has 14 kids. I think it's a dramatic inspiration for Chinese businessmen.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Nathan told me about this one time when a single Chinese businessman reached out to him.

[Nathan Zhang]

I do met a potential client. They wanted 200 kids.

[Ryan Knudsen]

You had a client who said they wanted 200 kids?

[Nathan Zhang]

Yeah.

[Ryan Knudsen]

How did you react when they requested that?

[Nathan Zhang]

I was happy at the beginning because it's a business to think about, you know, it's a business. But if you come down and say, hey, first question I ask is, that's a single guy who's going to take care of the kid. And he said, my sister. And I said, oh.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Nathan didn't take the man as a client. And after that, he says he instituted a new policy.

[Nathan Zhang]

We only help families to have three kids. No more than three kids and no more than two at the same time.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Why is that your policy?

[Nathan Zhang]

I just feel it's a lot of work. I have two kids and I got a lot of joy by spending time with them. I understand the joy for the family, but you gotta be responsible.

[Ryan Knudsen]

What Nathan experienced with that potential client isn't an isolated case. When my colleague Katherine Long started calling people in the industry, she heard a few different stories.

[Katherine Long]

Like this one attorney said his client was a billionaire Chinese parent with 20 children. Another surrogacy agency owner said that he had helped fill an order for over 100 children born through surrogacy.

[Ryan Knudsen]

A single person had a hundred children through surrogacy.

[Katherine Long]

At least they seem to be trying to. Yeah.

[Ryan Knudsen]

How is this possible?

[Katherine Long]

It's possible because there's a network of companies that are designed to cater to the whims of the very rich that are operating in a space nearly wholly devoid of regulation.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Despite the fact that surrogacy is a multi billion dollar industry, there are no federal laws regulating it. And that's created a thriving cottage industry catering to almost any desire a wealthy parent could have. It means that nowadays, if you've got the money and you want a bunch of babies born all at once, you can get that in the US and you don't even have to be here to do it. Here's how it works. It all starts, of course, with sperm and an egg that could be collected in an IVF clinic in, say, Hong Kong or Japan.

[Katherine Long]

That would be shipped over to an IVF clinic in the United States. An embryo might be created and then transferred into a surrogate in California.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Nine months later, that surrogate gives birth, at which point another business steps in.

[Katherine Long]

We've spoken with a few surrogates who've said that the children they carried and gave birth to were ultimately picked up at the hospital, not by the parents, but by nannies or people carrying power of attorney documentation.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Those credentialed baby couriers might then deliver the infant to a house. Inside that house could be other surrogate babies all being cared for by nannies.

[Katherine Long]

They may take care of them for a couple of months, and once the child's travel documents are ready, the nanny will help bring the child back to China and reunite it with its parents.

[Ryan Knudsen]

And thanks to the 14th amendment, that baby would also be a US citizen. How much can this whole process cost?

[Katherine Long]

This can easily cost well over $150,000. We're looking at $200,000 is pretty typical.

[Ryan Knudsen]

And if people want to do this, there isn't much standing in other than perhaps a few sharp eyed clerks at an LA courthouse. Up next, the strange case of Shu Bo.

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[Ryan Knudsen]

Clerks at that LA family court knew a few things about Shubo the guy whose name kept appearing on those parentage petitions, he was applying for parental rights to at least four babies, babies who would soon be born via surrogacy. The clerks also knew that Xu Bo already had, or was in the process of having eight more kids via surrogate. That number of children raised a red flag for Family Court Judge Amy Pellman. So the judge called for a hearing. Xu Bo, it turns out, is a tech entrepreneur who lives in China. So he joined the hearing remotely.

[Katherine Long]

And the judge starts asking questions, and Shubo starts answering them. And he says that ultimately he hopes to have as many as 20 children. He says he wants to have all boys because they're superior to girls. He says that he hopes his children will grow up to inherit his business empire.

[Ryan Knudsen]

And he's saying all this to a female judge?

[Katherine Long]

Yes, that's right.

[Ryan Knudsen]

How does she take that?

[Katherine Long]

Well, according to people who were in the hearing, she seemed less than impressed by some of these answers. At one point, the judge asked about the children that he'd already had through surrogates, and he said that he hadn't actually visited them yet because his work had been too busy.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Were you able to reach out to Shubo? Did you talk to him?

[Katherine Long]

We made numerous attempts to reach him through his company, and a representative for his company did end up responding. Although they did not give their name, they disputed many of the facts in our reporting. They also promised to unleash a campaign of retribution against one of my colleagues on social media. Wow.

[Ryan Knudsen]

After Catherine and her colleagues published their story about Shubo, his company put out a statement on social media. It called the Wall Street Journal a rumor monger and disputed that he'd said boys are superior to girls. Well, so what were you able to find out about this guy Shubo?

[Katherine Long]

Shubo is a video game entrepreneur. His company, Duo Yi Network, makes, like, fantasy multiplayer games in China. He's a bit of a recluse. He rarely gives interviews. He hasn't been photographed in public for years, and he's known as kind of an online mega poster.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Shu Bo posts under his own name, but Catherine was able to link other social media accounts to him based on things those accounts posted. Stuff like personal documents and details of legal proceedings, things only Shoebo or someone very close to him would know. In their statement, Xubo's company denied that those other accounts were his.

[Katherine Long]

The tone of a lot of his posts is pretty inflammatory and oftentimes very misogynistic. To use an example from the Weibo account of his company, they put out a statement saying that they would welcome applications from people whose careers have been harmed by their rejection of feminism.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Wow. So what do we know about what his goal is with having all these kids?

[Katherine Long]

Well, he's. Accounts linked to him have posted pretty prolifically about his goal of having a large number of children. At one point, an account linked to him said that Shubo wanted to have 50 high quality sons. At another point, accounts linked to him have praised Elon Musk's large family and expressed a desire to have children with Elon Musk. Although the account said, well, since I can't do that, we're both men, I guess I'll just have to settle for having grandchildren with him, I guess. Implying that their children would, you know, at some point get together.

[Ryan Knudsen]

After that hearing in la, Judge Pelman denied Schubo's parentage petitions. The court declined to comment on the case. But then what happens to the kids?

[Katherine Long]

It kind of threw the legal fate of these children into limbo to a certain degree. Without an order of parentage, it's not entirely clear who is in charge of the children once they're born. And typically in that case, according to experts in the space that we spoke to, the children might end up in the custody of social services or possibly at a certain point in foster care.

[Ryan Knudsen]

This is extraordinary. So there are four children, there are four pregnancies. Now at this point, we don't know what's going to happen to the kids.

[Katherine Long]

Yeah, that's right. I mean, it was truly. This is not something that happens nearly ever in surrogacy proceedings.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Do you have any sense of what was going through the minds of the surrogates?

[Katherine Long]

We weren't able to reach any of the surrogates. I can only guess how alarmed they might have been if they were aware of this reversal.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Even though Catherine wasn't able to speak with Shubo's surrogates, she's spoken to others in similar situations. Surrogates who've discovered that they were carrying just one of many babies for the same parent.

[Katherine Long]

And that revelation oftentimes was very disconcerting for them. They want to believe that the child they're carrying is going to receive the full love and attention from these parents. And to learn at some point in the process that that's not the case, that, you know, the child that they're carrying is going to be one of many. Comes as a real shock for a lot of surrogates.

[Ryan Knudsen]

It seems like Shubo didn't like get any real pushback for this plan of his until he Just reached this LA family court and this one judge.

[Katherine Long]

Yeah. And in fact, some legal experts might argue that the judge went out on a limb in denying his parentage petition since he had broken no law. There is no law preventing anybody from having as many children as they would like.

[Ryan Knudsen]

In the absence of regulation, fertility industry groups have recommended that businesses not work with parents who are seeking more than two simultaneous surrogacies. But that's just a recommendation.

[Katherine Long]

They aren't necessarily bound to adhere to these guidelines, and they're certainly. They don't take the force of law.

[Ryan Knudsen]

An account linked to Xubo posted that he was ultimately able to get those four babies, or at least a few of them, according to surrogacy lawyers Catherine spoke with. Shubo could have simply refiled his parentage petitions in another jurisdiction. So how is Shue faring in this quest of his to have a mega family?

[Katherine Long]

He seems to be. He seems to be doing pretty successfully.

[Ryan Knudsen]

On social media accounts linked to Shu, Bo have posted multiple videos of children.

[Katherine Long]

One of the videos that he posted shows the person behind the camera walking out onto what appears to be a patio. The patio is filled with children, more than 20 children. And as the children realize that the person behind the camera has walked onto the scene, they start running up to him one by one and increasingly in groups. And they start saying, daddy, daddy, Daddy. And one of them is. Is carrying a little duck stuffed animal. And they say, look at my duck.

[Ryan Knudsen]

The little girl in a floppy pink sun hat holds her duck up to the camera. Baba, she says, dad, a little duck wants to hug you. A little boy adds, I want to hug you.

[Katherine Long]

The children appear to be very healthy. They're in the care of women who might be nannies.

[Ryan Knudsen]

In another video, the children do puzzles and recite Chinese verses for the camera.

[Katherine Long]

Oftentimes, the children are pictured eating meals and playing in play areas or in what appear to be bedrooms.

[Ryan Knudsen]

For so many people, the fertility industry has made the impossible possible. It's brought hope to people who might never have been able to have children of their own. But in the absence of meaningful rules, the industry has also become a playground for the rich.

[Katherine Long]

I think that what we know about extremely wealthy people is that they feel that their desires can be actualized with only a little money. And if your desire is to have a large number of children who are related to you, it's possible to make that happen with the technology we have today. And part of the technology is surrogacy.

[Ryan Knudsen]

There's one more video that Catherine showed me. It was posted by an ex girlfriend of Shubo's. It's pretty crudely cut together, but it shows a parade of little boys. They're in their PJs. One by one, they step up to the camera and say, I am shuffling. We don't know exactly how many kids Shubo has now. That ex girlfriend said he has over 300. But after she made that claim on social media, Xu Bo's company stepped in to clarify.

[Katherine Long]

They said, no, no, that's actually not true. We've reviewed the records and he has only a little over a hundred.

[Ryan Knudsen]

Next Friday, we've got one more story from the fringes of the fertility industry. This time we look at the tech billionaires trying to genetically engineer babies. The conversation, to be clear was, should we edit an embryo or can we edit an embryo?

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It was we are going to edit an embryo.

[Ryan Knudsen]

That's all for today. Friday, March 20 the Journal is a co production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Ben Foldy and Ling Ling Wei. Special thanks to Lisa Wang. The show is made by Kathryn Brewer, Pia Gadkari, Isabella Japal, Sophie Codner, Matt Kwong, Jessica Mendoza, Laura Morris, Enrique Perez de la Rosa, Sarah Platt, Allen Rodriguez Espinosa, Heather Rogers, Pierce Singhy, Jeevika Verma, Lisa Wang, Catherine Whalen, Tatiana Zamis and me, Ryan Knudsen. It's Lisa Wang's last week with us. Lisa, we are so grateful to have gotten to work with you over these past three years. We're going to miss you so much. Best of luck. This episode was produced by Annie Minoff and edited by Colin McNulty. Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapak and Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by so Wiley and was remixed for this episode by Peter Leonard. Additional music this week from Katherine Anderson, Peter Leonard, Bobby Lord, Emma Munger, Nathan Singapok, Griffin Tanner and Blue Dot Sessions. Fact checking this week by Kate Gallagher and Mary Mathis. Thanks for listening. See you Monday.

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