>>58220365We don't know and will never know. The only Ash that even has a dad that isn't a complete absentee is the one from the movie continuity and the one time he was supposed to make an appearance Ash was helping a dead kid's ghost and said ghost's parents get closure so by the time Ash went to meet up with him and his mother his dad had to go to work.
Mainline Ash's dad is seemingly out of the picture as he's never really mentioned too much and the few times he is it's simply stated he left on a Pokemon Journey of his own, though Shudo's novelization implies he was a failure and didn't return out of shame for not having achieved anything of note.
