Ted Cruz Went on ‘The View’ and Said Elon Musk Told Him AI Has a 20% Chance of Killing Us All in the Next 5-10 Years

Gossip

By Chrissy Stockton

Updated 6 minutes ago, September 9, 2026

Ted Cruz walked into The View on Wednesday and got asked a blunt question: if AI researchers think the technology could wipe people out this decade, what is Congress going to do?

The question followed former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who left the company and told The Wall Street Journal that the people building AI “earnestly believe it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” Cruz said that sounded familiar. In March 2025 he had Elon Musk on his show, Verdict with Ted Cruz. They talked DOGE, Tesla, AI — and, in Cruz’s phrase, “killer robots.”

Cruz asked Musk the odds that AI destroys humanity. Musk said 10% to 20%. Cruz’s reply on The View was the same as it was then: “Holy crap.”

On the podcast, Cruz had gone further. He asked whether “Skynet” was real and how close the world was to killer robots wiping out humanity. Musk said it was “20% likely. Maybe 10%,” possibly in five to 10 years. Then he changed the spin: an 80% chance of “extreme prosperity for all,” billions of humanoid robots, and a preference that if killer robots do show up, they be American, not Chinese.

Alyssa Farah Griffin wanted a plan from the senator to ensure that doesn’t happen. Cruz said he passed the Take It Down act which bans deepfake nudes made with AI.

Thanks for spending time with Thought Catalog. Connect with us on Facebook and browse the rest of our website.