According to TechFlow, on June 18, Elon Musk responded to a community question on X asking when China would reach Fable-level AI. Musk’s reply was brief: “Could be Q1.” The original exchange did not provide further details on the specific year, the measurement criteria, or which model would be used as the benchmark for reaching that level.
The comment followed an earlier post by X user Teortaxes discussing the progress of Chinese AI models. Teortaxes said GLM 5.2 currently appears to be about seven months behind frontier models and is broadly at the level of Opus 4.7 to 4.8. In that framing, the comparison focused on both a time gap with leading models and a version-level reference against Opus.
Teortaxes also stated that Mythos had reached Preview status in early February 2026, and that the full PRC Mythos, referred to as “Fable,” could be launched between November and December 2026. Musk’s short “could be Q1” response then became part of the same discussion around the timeline for China reaching the Fable-level AI threshold.