Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur and founder of Space X, Tesla and Paypal, has told an interviewer there is only a “one in billions” chance that we’re not living in a computer simulation.

Speaking at San Francisco’s Code Conference this week, Musk said that he has had “so many simulation discussions it’s crazy”, and that it got to the point where “every conversation [he had] was the AI/simulation conversation”.

He also claimed that, if we’re not living in a simulation, we could be approaching the end of the world.

Putting forward what he described as the “strongest argument” for consensus reality being in a simulation, Musky said: “Forty years ago we had Pong. Like, two rectangles and a dot. That was what games were.

“Now, 40 years later, we have photorealistic, 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously, and it's getting better every year. Soon we'll have virtual reality, augmented reality.