Elon Musk took the stand in the OpenAI trial. He explained crypto to the jury.
His take: "Some of them have merit, but most of them are scams."
That is a striking line. Musk owns Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin himself. His firm Tesla still holds more than 11,000 Bitcoin on its books.
The crypto line came up in talk about OpenAI's early days. Court files showed the firm once thought about its own ICO to raise money.
ICOs, or initial coin offerings, were a hot tool at the time. They have since fallen out of favor.
OpenAI never went through with the plan. Instead, it shifted to a for-profit model tied to Microsoft. That shift is the heart of Musk's lawsuit.
Musk says CEO Sam Altman and OpenAI broke their founding non-profit deal. OpenAI says Musk agreed to the change at the time.
The trial in California is set to run about three weeks. Musk wants leadership changes at OpenAI. He also wants damages above $134 billion. The firm is preparing for a possible IPO.
Jury selection turned up generally negative views of Musk. The jurors said they could be fair.
Musk's words tend to move crypto markets. A single Dogecoin tweet has done it before.
Telling a jury most coins are scams is a bigger swing than a tweet. It does not change his actual holdings, but the message lands hard.
Tesla has not changed its Bitcoin position since early 2025. It sold 75% of its stash back in 2022.
The current stash is worth about $1 billion at recent prices. It dipped closer to $786 million when Bitcoin slid 22% in the first quarter.
Musk's crypto take on the stand also lined up with new heat on Sam Altman's own crypto project. That project is Worldcoin. It has drawn fresh claims of unfair token rules in recent days.
That backdrop matters. The trial sits inside a much bigger fight over the future of OpenAI itself. The firm has been prepping for a stock listing. The last private round priced it at $852 billion.
The OpenAI verdict will shape one of the most valuable private firms in the world. A future IPO and the firm's non-profit roots are both on the line.
If the jury sides with Musk, OpenAI may have to unwind parts of its for-profit setup. That would change how Microsoft and other backers get paid. If it sides with OpenAI, the IPO path likely speeds up.
For crypto, the more interesting moment was a one-line aside about scams. It landed inside a separate lawsuit. When the loudest tech founder draws a line between Bitcoin and "everything else," investors tend to listen.
Coin prices held steady on the day of the testimony. But trial moments like this often show up later in flow data and altcoin pricing. That is true for projects with thin volume and heavy retail interest.
For now, the headline news is the trial. The crypto angle is the side story.
But the side story may matter more for retail buyers. The man who runs Tesla just told a U.S. jury most coins are scams. That is the kind of line that sticks.