Elon Musk later decided OpenAI was not on a trajectory to succeed, told its founders it had a zero percent chance of success, and stopped participating.

Judged as of 2025-09-11. The claim has three parts: (1) Musk decided OpenAI was not on a trajectory to succeed; (2) he told the founders it had a zero percent chance of success (or words to that effect); (3) he then stopped participating. True if contemporaneous documents (emails released in Musk v. OpenAI litigation, OpenAI's March 2024 blog post with emails, court filings, reliable reporting) show Musk expressed that OpenAI was on course to fail, including a 0% (or near-identical) chance of success, and then left or stopped taking part (e.g. leaving the board in 2018). Mostly true if all three hold but the wording differs slightly (e.g. 'zero chance' vs. 'zero percent') or the order or timing is somewhat off. Mixed if the departure is confirmed but only one of the other parts is documented. Mostly false if he left for other main documented reasons (e.g. a control dispute or a Tesla conflict) and the claim's framing distorts this. False if records show none of these statements were made or that he did not stop participating.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Elon Musk wanted an OpenAI for-profit OpenAI · 13 December 2024 Own record

   “OpenAI is on a path of certain failure relative to Google. There obviously needs to be immediate and dramatic action or everyone except for Google will be consigned to irrelevance.”

2. E2 Elon Musk wanted an OpenAI for-profit OpenAI · 13 December 2024 Own record

   “My probability assessment of OpenAI being relevant to DeepMind/Google without a dramatic change in execution and resources is 0%. Not 1%. I wish it were otherwise.”

3. E3 What Did the Elon Musk vs. Sam Altman Trial Really Reveal? The Ringer · 21 May 2026

   “Ilya Sutskever: Yes. He made comments to the effect of “We don’t have 1 percent chance of success; we have 0 percent chance of success.””

4. E4 The secret history of Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and OpenAI Semafor · 24 March 2023

   “Musk then stepped down from OpenAI’s board of directors. Publicly, he and OpenAI said the reason for his departure was a conflict of interest.”

Musk's emails, as published by OpenAI, say OpenAI was "on a path of certain failure relative to Google" and give a "0%. Not 1%" probability of it staying relevant to DeepMind/Google without a dramatic change (E1, E2). Separately, Ilya Sutskever testified that Musk made comments to the effect of "we have 0 percent chance of success" (E3). Semafor confirms Musk then stepped down from OpenAI's board, though the stated public reason was a conflict of interest (E4). All three parts have support, but the 0% figure in the emails depended on there being no dramatic change, and other reasons for leaving were given in public, so the verdict is mostly true rather than true.