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Elon Musk Says Most Crypto Assets Are Scam, but X Launches New Crypto Trading Terminal

Elon Musk told a jury in Oakland that most cryptocurrencies are scams during testimony in a civil trial against OpenAI, marking a significant shift from his long-standing position as one of the sector's vocal supporters.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO made this statement when asked about OpenAI's 2018 plan to raise funds through an initial coin offering (ICO), according to a report by New York Times journalist Mike Isaac.

Sharp Turn from Vocal Crypto Supporter

Musk moved the market between 2020 and 2021 through tweets and corporate purchases. Tesla bought Bitcoin
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worth $1.5 billion in 2021, becoming one of the first major public companies to hold crypto assets on their balance sheet.

Musk's posts about Dogecoin
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repeatedly pushed the meme coin's price to new all-time highs that same year. The billionaire also previously confirmed he owns Bitcoin, Ethereum
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, and Dogecoin in various interviews.

Musk's views began to shift in 2022 when Tesla sold about 75% of their Bitcoin holdings. Since then, the company has maintained that position unchanged, now holding 11,509 BTC worth $879 million in Q1 2026 after a $222 million decrease in value.

Elon Musk: Most Crypto Is Scam as X Launches Cashtags

This court statement coincides with the launch of a new feature on Musk's social platform. X product head Nikita Bier said that the company is launching a web version of Cashtags, a feature that turns $ticker for stocks and crypto into clickable real-time charts and asset-specific post feeds.

Bier explained that this tool aims for X to become a primary trading terminal. Additional controls, such as contract address matching and account locking for first-time crypto posters, are designed to filter scam tokens before reaching users.

This feature launch aligns with X's broader push into the financial sector, including payment services and pilot trading features. Musk's distinction between valuable assets and scams aligns with the purpose of Cashtags, separating assets the feature aims to highlight from those controlled by their anti-scam measures.

ICO Plans Resurface in Court

The scam statement comes after the canceled 2018 OpenAI token proposal appeared in court documents.

“In January 2018, just months after their ‘enthusiasm’ in September 2017, Altman submitted a suspicious ‘ICO’ proposal that could be considered a scam, or initial coin offering, which would have made OpenAI, Inc. issue its own crypto assets. Musk also firmly rejected this idea, stating ‘it would only result in a massive loss of credibility for OpenAI and all parties involved in the ICO,’” Musk's team claimed in the documents.

Musk, as a co-founder of OpenAI since 2015, accused the company of breaching its initial contract by partnering with Microsoft and selling commercial products.

“Some of them do have value, but most are scams.”

Musk made this statement in response to questions about early ICO discussions, as revealed by Isaac.

OpenAI denied and stated that Musk had supported the ICO plan at one point, which involved establishing a new profit-oriented subsidiary. The jury process is expected to last three weeks.