The Chinese Billionaires Having Dozens of U.S.-Born Babies Via Surrogate

A Chinese billionaire was seeking parental rights to at least four unborn children, and the court’s additional research showed that he had already fathered or was in the process of fathering at least eight more—all through surrogates.

When Pellman called Xu Bo in for a confidential hearing in the summer of 2023, he never entered the courtroom, according to people who attended the hearing. The maker of fantasy videogames lived in China and appeared via video, speaking through an interpreter. He said he hoped to have 20 or so U.S.-born children through surrogacy—boys, because they’re superior to girls—to one day take over his business.

Several of his kids were being raised by nannies in nearby Irvine as they awaited paperwork to travel to China. He hadn’t yet met them, he told the judge, because work had been busy.

Pellman was alarmed, according to the people who attended the hearing. Surrogacy was a tool to help people build families, but what Xu was describing didn’t seem like parenting, the people said.

The judge denied his request for parentage—normally quickly approved for the intended parents of a baby born through surrogacy, experts say. The decision left the children he’d paid for to be born in legal limbo.   

The court declined to comment on Xu’s case. 

Xu, an online megaposter but real-life recluse, has rarely spoken with reporters and hasn’t been photographed in public for nearly a decade. 

A representative of Xu’s company, Duoyi Network, didn’t respond to specific questions about the hearing or Xu’s use of surrogacy. “The boss does not accept interview requests from anyone for any purpose,” the representative said in an email to The Wall Street Journal, adding that “much of what you described is untrue.” The representative, who didn’t provide a name, didn’t respond to repeated requests to clarify what was inaccurate.  

Pellman’s decision in the confidential case, which has never been reported, was a rare rebuke to a little-known trend in the largely unregulated U.S. surrogacy industry: Chinese elites and billionaires who are going outside of China, where domestic surrogacy is illegal, to quietly have large numbers of U.S.-born babies. 

Since U.S. court proceedings for surrogacies are usually private, often taking place without even a mention on the court’s public docket, oversight is limited.

Some Chinese parents, inspired by Elon Musk’s 14 known children, pay millions in surrogacy fees to hire women in the U.S. to help them build families of jaw-dropping size. Xu calls himself “China’s first father” and is known in China as a vocal critic of feminism. On social media, his company said he has more than 100 children born through surrogacy in the U.S. 

Another wealthy Chinese executive, Wang Huiwu, hired U.S. models and others as egg donors to have 10 girls, with the aim of one day marrying them off to powerful men, according to people close to the executive’s education company. 

Other Chinese clients, usually seeking more typical numbers of babies, are high-powered executives lacking the time and inclination to bear their own children, older parents or same-sex couples, according to people who arrange surrogacy deals and work in surrogacy law. All have the wealth to go outside China while maintaining the privacy needed to manage potential logistical, publicity and legal issues back home. Some have the political clout to avoid censure.

The market has grown so sophisticated, experts say, that at times Chinese parents have had U.S.-born children without stepping foot in the country. A thriving mini-industry of American surrogacy agencies, law firms, clinics, delivery agencies and nanny services—even to pick up the newborns from hospitals—has risen to accommodate the demand, permitting parents to ship their genetic material abroad and get a baby delivered back, at a cost of up to $200,000 per child.

The growing Asian market for international fertility services has drawn the attention of American investors, including Peter Thiel, whose family office has backed a chain of IVF clinics across Southeast Asia and a recently opened branch in Los Angeles.

Most U.S. states don’t bar international parents from working with American surrogates. Chinese law doesn’t strictly prohibit its citizens from going overseas for surrogacy, but officials have criticized it. Stories of Chinese celebrities or government officials working with overseas surrogates have sometimes caused scandal among the public at home, which tends to view surrogacy as ethically dubious and exploitative.

The babies born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens by virtue of the 14th Amendment. The idea of foreign nationals using the Constitution’s guarantee of citizenship has long been a political flashpoint. 

In 2020, the State Department moved to curb so-called birth tourism, tightening visa rules for women suspected of visiting the U.S. to give birth. In January, Donald Trump issued an executive order denying citizenship to children born in the U.S. unless one of their parents was a citizen or permanent legal resident, which is being reviewed by the Supreme Court. It’s unclear if either regulation would apply to foreigners working with surrogates who are Americans.

Last month, Sen. Rick Scott, the Florida Republican, introduced a bill in the Senate to ban the use of surrogacy in the U.S. by people from some foreign countries, including China. He cited an ongoing federal human trafficking investigation into a Chinese-American couple in Los Angeles who have more than two dozen children, nearly all born through surrogacy within the past four years, as reported by the Journal. 

Law enforcement is more broadly looking at some Chinese parents working with American surrogates. Investigators with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security have interviewed some surrogates who have worked with Chinese parents, according to the surrogates, though the purpose of those investigations is unclear. The FBI declined to comment, and DHS didn’t respond to a request for comment. 

Nathan Zhang, the founder and CEO of IVF USA, a network of fertility clinics in the U.S. and Mexico that cater to wealthy Chinese and partner with surrogacy agencies, said his clientele in the past were largely parents trying to bypass China’s one-child policy. Babies brought back to China, as U.S. citizens instead of Chinese citizens, fell outside the country’s penalty system. The one-child policy was abolished in 2015.

More recently, a new clientele has emerged. “Elon Musk is becoming a role model now,” said Zhang. An increasing number of “crazy rich” clients are commissioning dozens, or even hundreds, of U.S.-born babies with the goal of “forging an unstoppable family dynasty,” he said.

One wealthy businessman in China, who like Wang is also in the education business, wanted more than 200 children at once using surrogates, envisioning a family enterprise, Zhang said. “I asked him directly, ‘How do you plan to raise all these children?’ He was speechless,” said Zhang, who said he refused him as a client. 

Other surrogacy professionals described similarly head-spinning numbers. The owner of one agency in California said he had helped fill an order for a Chinese parent seeking 100 children in the past few years, a request spread over several agencies. 

A Los Angeles surrogacy attorney said he had helped his client, a Chinese billionaire, have 20 children through surrogacy in recent years.