Taking the witness stand at a federal courthouse in downtown Oakland, Elon Musk delivered blunt remarks about the cryptocurrency industry during his high-profile testimony in his lawsuit against OpenAI.
The centibillionaire and self-proclaimed "Dogefather" stated that most cryptocurrencies are, in fact, scams. His comments came in response to early internal OpenAI emails — surfaced during the proceedings — showing that the company had once considered launching an initial coin offering (ICO) to raise funds. At the time, ICOs were a widely popular, if highly speculative, fundraising method.
According to courtroom reporting by New York Times journalist Mike Isaac, Musk's anti-crypto remarks caught attention given his long and complicated history with digital assets.
Musk's relationship with cryptocurrency has been notably inconsistent, swinging between skepticism and enthusiastic endorsement. His earliest public comments on the subject were mixed, but he eventually became a prominent voice in the space largely through his persistent promotion of Dogecoin (DOGE), the meme-inspired token.
In April 2019, Musk tweeted, "Dogecoin might be my fav cryptocurrency. It's pretty cool." By late 2020, even single-word tweets from Musk were enough to send DOGE's price sharply higher. He later embraced the title of "The Dogefather" and continued hyping the token during a high-profile appearance on Saturday Night Live in 2021.
In February 2021, Tesla stunned financial markets by announcing it had purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin. Just months later, in May 2021, Musk abruptly reversed course and announced that Tesla would suspend Bitcoin payments, citing environmental concerns.
In August 2024, Musk and Tesla secured the dismissal of a federal lawsuit that had accused them of defrauding investors and manipulating Dogecoin's price.
The current trial — formally styled Musk v. Altman et al. — carries significant stakes beyond the crypto commentary. The case poses a substantial risk to OpenAI's plans for a potential $1 trillion IPO and could have wide-ranging consequences for the broader artificial intelligence industry.
Musk, who provided approximately $38 million in seed funding to help launch OpenAI in 2015, is suing the company alongside its CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman. He alleges that OpenAI has deceptively transformed into a for-profit "wealth machine" rather than fulfilling its original mission as a nonprofit organization intended to benefit humanity.
Musk is seeking $150 billion in damages and is demanding that OpenAI's corporate structure be reverted to its original nonprofit status.
Why it matters
Musk's characterization of most cryptocurrencies as scams came during formal legal proceedings in a high-profile federal lawsuit, giving the remarks a specific legal and public context distinct from his usual social media commentary.
The lawsuit — Musk v. Altman et al. — directly targets OpenAI's planned transition to a for-profit structure, which the company has linked to a potential $1 trillion IPO, meaning the trial's outcome could affect the organization's future funding and governance.
The surfacing of early OpenAI internal emails discussing an ICO illustrates how the company's fundraising strategy evolved significantly from its founding period to its current corporate ambitions.
