Elon Musk told an Oakland jury that most cryptocurrencies are scams during testimony in his civil trial against OpenAI, marking a marked break from his years as one of the sector’s loudest public backers.
The head of Tesla and SpaceX made the statement when asked about OpenAI’s 2018 plan to raise money through an initial coin offering (ICO), according to New York Times reporter Mike Isaac.
A sharp turnaround for the most vocal supporter of cryptocurrencies
Musk spent the course from 2020 to 2021 Move markets through tweets and corporate purchases. Tesla acquired $1.5 billion in Bitcoin (BTC) in 2021, one of the oldest balance sheet allocations by a major public company.
His posts on Dogecoin (DOGE) repeatedly pushed the meme to new highs in the same year. The billionaire also confirmed his personal holdings in Bitcoin, Ethereum (ETH), and Dogecoin via previous interviews.
This situation began to cool in 2022, when Tesla sold approximately 75% of its Bitcoin reserves. The company has held its position steady since then, holding 11,509 BTC worth $879 million in Q1 2026 after a $222 million writedown.
Elon Musk told jury that most cryptocurrencies are a scam, as Company X issues Cashtags
The courtroom suspension coincided with a parallel campaign on Musk’s social platform. X’s head of product, Nikita Beer, said the company was rolling out a Web version of Cashtagsa feature that turns stock and cryptocurrency indices into clickable real-time charts and asset-specific post feeds.
Bier framed the tool as a way to position X as a primary trading terminal. Combined controls, including contract address matching and account locks on cryptocurrency labels for the first time, aim to filter out fraudulent tokens before they reach users.
The offering fits into a broader X Funding batch which also includes payments and demo trading features. Musk’s distinction between meritocracy and fraud is straightforward Pitch Cashtagsto separate what the feature wants to appear from what the anti-fraud controls are designed to suppress.
ICO plan resurfaces in court
Fraud comment appeared as OpenAI canceled its 2018 token proposal Entered into the trial record.
“In January 2018, just months after their September 2017 ‘enthusiasm’, Altman proposed a fraudulent ‘initial coin offering’, or ICO, that would have resulted in OpenAI, Inc. selling its own cryptocurrency. Musk rejected that idea as well, saying ‘it would simply result in a massive loss of credibility for OpenAI and everyone associated with the ICO,'” Musk’s team said. He claimed.
Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI since 2015, alleges that the company violated its articles of incorporation by partnering with Microsoft and selling commercial products.
“Some of them have merit, but most of them are scams.”
This language came in response to questions about the early ICO discussion, which he attributed Isaac.
OpenAI disputes that Musk supported the ICO plan, which would have required the creation of a for-profit subsidiary. Jury proceedings are expected to last about three weeks.
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