The Wall Street Journal said that Los Angeles courtroom clerks noticed the same name cropping up repeatedly on surrogacy petitions. The trail led to Duoyi Network videogame executive Xu Bo, a Chinese tech billionaire seeking parental rights to multiple unborn children, with several more already produced, all through US surrogates.
When family court Judge Amy Pellman summoned him for a confidential hearing in the summer of 2023, Xu did not show up in person. He appeared by video from China, speaking through an interpreter, and calmly explained his ambition to have 20 or so US-born children, preferably boys, take over his business.
Several of the children were already alive and being raised by nannies in Irvine, waiting for paperwork so they could be shipped to China. Xu told the court he had not met them yet because work had been a bit busy.
According to people who attended, Pellman was alarmed. Surrogacy exists to help people build families, not to let tycoons treat reproduction like a strategy game. She denied his request for parentage, leaving the children he had paid for in legal limbo.
Xu has leaned into the image online. Accounts linked to him describe him as “China’s first father” and boast that he has more than 100 children born through surrogacy in the US. One verified account linked to Xu wrote in 2023 that he wanted “50 high-quality sons.”
Another wealthy Chinese executive, Wang Huiwu, allegedly went a different route, commissioning 10 girls via US surrogacy using eggs bought from models, a finance PhD and a musician. According to people close to his education business, the idea was to raise daughters who could later be married off to powerful men.
Surrogacy agencies, IVF clinics, law firms and nanny services in the US now operate like a supply chain, allowing foreign billionaires to send genetic material abroad and receive babies back for up to $200,000 each.
IVF USA founder and CEO Nathan Zhang said the older generation of Chinese clients once used US surrogacy to dodge the one-child policy.
“Elon Musk is becoming a role model for a new wave of 'crazy rich' clients who want to create dynasties measured in headcount."
One Chinese businessman wanted more than 200 children.
“I asked him directly, ‘How do you plan to raise all these children?’ He was speechless,” Zhang said
A Los Angeles surrogacy lawyer told the WSJ he helped a Chinese billionaire have 20 children in recent years. A California agency owner said he helped fulfil an order for 100 children spread across multiple agencies, which is what happens when there is no central oversight, and everyone wants the fee.
Amanda Troxler, a Los Angeles surrogacy lawyer, said one prospective client asked if they got a bulk discount after requesting eight or 10 surrogacies.
“I was like, ‘No, we’re not Costco,’” Troxler said, adding that she refuses clients seeking more than two simultaneous surrogacies.
The industry’s own ethical guidelines suggest limiting parents to two at a time, but the punishment for ignoring that advice is little more than being kicked out of a trade group. As long as the money keeps flowing, the moral brakes barely work.
The children are US citizens under the 14th Amendment, which adds a political edge to the spectacle. The idea of foreign billionaires minting citizens at scale has already triggered crackdowns on birth tourism and fresh legal fights over citizenship.
Last month, US senator Rick Scott introduced a bill to ban surrogacy for people from certain foreign countries, including China, citing a federal human trafficking investigation into a Chinese-American couple with more than two dozen surrogate-born children.
Researchers at Emory University found international use of US surrogacy quadrupled between 2014 and 2019, with 41 per cent of international parents coming from China. Investors have noticed. Fertility chains backed by serious money are expanding across Asia and into Los Angeles, selling what one executive openly called “regulatory arbitrage.”
Xu’s online posts show the endgame. Accounts linked to him fantasise about his children marrying Elon Musk’s children and insist that “having more children can solve all problems.”
Videos show groups of young children running towards the camera, shouting “Daddy!” in chorus.
