Elon Musk: Crypto’s Darling Turns Heel, Calls It a Scam-But X Says “Hold My Cashtag”

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In the dusty courtroom of Oakland, where the air hung thick with the scent of betrayal and the faint hum of electric dreams, Elon Musk, the man who once rode the crypto wave like a modern-day Ahab, turned his harpoon on the very beast he’d chased. “Most cryptocurrencies,” he declared, his voice cutting through the silence like a rusty blade, “are scams.”

The jury, a motley crew of bewildered souls, sat there like grapes waiting to be crushed under the weight of his words. Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX chieftain, had spoken these heresy during his civil trial against OpenAI, a drama as tangled as a ball of yarn in a kitten’s paws. According to New York Times scribe Mike Isaac, the remark came when Musk was prodded about a 2018 OpenAI scheme to raise funds through an initial coin offering (ICO). Ah, the ICO-a relic of a time when hope and greed danced hand in hand, and everyone thought they could mint gold from thin air.

The Man Who Rode the Crypto Wave Now Calls It a Drown

Once upon a time, Musk was crypto’s loudest bard, strumming his tweets like a lute to move markets. In 2021, Tesla, his steel and silicon steed, galloped into the fray with a $1.5 billion bet on Bitcoin. Dogecoin, that lovable mutt of the crypto world, soared on his whims, its bark echoing through the valleys of Reddit and Twitter. But oh, how the mighty have fallen-or at least, grown cautious. By 2022, Tesla had sold off 75% of its Bitcoin hoard, leaving just enough to remind us of its fleeting romance with the digital gold rush.

Yet, Musk’s heart wasn’t entirely hardened. He still clung to his Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin like a prospector holding onto his last nugget of hope. But the wind had shifted, and the once-boisterous booster now whispered warnings of scams and folly.

So … it’s finally come to this …

– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 7, 2021

Meanwhile, as Musk was busy testifying, his other brainchild, X, was cooking up a scheme of its own. Nikita Bier, the head of product at X, announced the rollout of Cashtags-a feature so slick it could make a stockbroker blush. With real-time charts and asset-specific feeds, X aimed to become the trading terminal of the future, a digital saloon where cowboys and cowgirls could wrangle their portfolios.

X: The New Sheriff in Crypto Town

“Today we’re rolling out the new Cashtags feature for web on X․com,” Bier crowed, his tweet echoing through the digital canyons. “Now X can be a core part of your trading terminal with real-time charts and posts for every asset.” Ah, the irony! Just as Musk was declaring most crypto a scam, his platform was laying out the red carpet for traders, complete with anti-scam controls to keep the riffraff at bay. It was like a bartender serving whiskey while warning the patrons about the dangers of drink.

Today we’re rolling out the new Cashtags feature for web on X․com. Now X can be a core part of your trading terminal with real-time charts and posts for every asset.

– Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) April 30, 2026

The Cashtags feature, with its bundled controls and contract address matching, was X’s attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff, the gold from the pyrite. It was a noble endeavor, though one couldn’t help but chuckle at the timing. Musk, the man who once rode the crypto wave, was now building a lifeboat for those who’d been swept out to sea.

The Ghost of ICO Past

The trial, a spectacle of egos and ambitions, dredged up the ghost of OpenAI’s 2018 ICO plan. Musk’s team painted a picture of a young, starry-eyed OpenAI, eager to cash in on the crypto craze. “In January 2018, mere months after their September 2017 ‘enthusiasm,’ Altman proposed a scamworthy ‘ICO,’” Musk’s team claimed. “Musk shot down this idea too, stating ‘it would simply result in a massive loss of credibility for OpenAI and everyone associated with the ICO.’” Ah, the wisdom of hindsight-or perhaps just the cynicism of a man who’d seen too many schemes come and go.

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

Those words, uttered in the courtroom, hung in the air like a storm cloud. OpenAI, for its part, countered that Musk had backed the ICO plan, which would have required spinning out a for-profit subsidiary. The jury, poor souls, were left to sift through the wreckage of broken dreams and bitter accusations. The proceedings, expected to last three weeks, promised to be a saga as epic as any Steinbeck novel-complete with greed, betrayal, and the occasional glimmer of hope.

Elon Musk explaining what cryptocurrency is to the jury: “Some of them have merit, but most of them are scams.”

this is responding to early emails where OpenAI discussed holding an ICO, or initial coin offering, in order to fund the company.

(back then, ICOs were en vogue…)

– rat king 🐀 (@MikeIsaac) April 29, 2026

And so, the tale of Elon Musk, crypto, and the great scam debate rolled on, a modern-day parable of hubris and humility, of dreams and disillusionment. As the jury deliberated, the world watched, wondering if the man who once rode the wave could now predict the tide.

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2026-04-30 23:32