openai

Chiamalo per quello che è: un divorzio tra tech-bro dove nessuno ha firmato un prenotabile e ora litigano per la custodia del futuro.
Tornando indietro nel 2015, Elon Musk e Sam Altman hanno aiutato a far nascere OpenAI come un nonprofit altruista — 'AI per l'umanità', con l'aureola ben attaccata. Avanza qualche anno e quell'aureola viene silenziosamente scambiata con una struttura a profitto limitato, un 'situationship' da 10 miliardi di dollari con Microsoft, e un modello di business che sussurra 'allineamento' ma grida 'entrate'.
Musk si ritira arrabbiato nel 2018, scompare, poi riemerge come un cattivo nella terza stagione con xAI — il suo negozio di AI concorrente — e all'improvviso si ricorda di tenere molto alla missione nonprofit. Ecco la causa: sostiene che OpenAI ha venduto la sua anima, ha rotto promesse e ha trasformato un ente di beneficenza in una mucca da mungere con un branding migliore.

Elon Musk used a federal courtroom in Oakland on Wednesday to deliver one of his most candid assessments of the crypto industry to date — and it wasn’t flattering. Asked to explain cryptocurrency during testimony in his ongoing legal battle against OpenAI, Musk told the court:

The remark came in an unexpected context. Musk was responding to questions about OpenAI’s 2018 plans to launch a cryptocurrency through an initial coin offering — a fundraising mechanism the then-nonprofit briefly considered before abandoning it. The revelation emerged as part of the broader legal dispute between Musk and the AI company he co-founded and later left, Fortune reports.
The OpenAI Case That Brought Crypto Into the Courtroom
The trial centers on Musk’s claim that OpenAI violated the founding principles he helped establish when it entered into a major investment deal with Microsoft and began generating commercial revenue. Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015, argues the organization effectively “stole a charity” by transitioning from its nonprofit mission toward a commercially driven structure.
OpenAI’s defense is that Musk always understood the company might eventually need to operate as a for-profit entity — and the ICO discussion is central to that argument. According to OpenAI, Musk supported the idea of raising funds through a token sale, which would have required creating a for-profit subsidiary. If true, that support undermines his current position that the company’s commercial evolution was a betrayal of its founding mission.
The ICO era Musk was asked about is one of crypto’s more complicated chapters. The late 2010s saw hundreds of projects raise funds through public token sales, many of which collapsed quickly after launch — taking investor capital with them. Musk’s characterization of most crypto as scams, delivered under oath, lands differently than a tweet — and gives his skepticism a kind of institutional weight it previously lacked in public discourse.
The Contradiction Nobody Is Ignoring
The timing of Musk’s courtroom crypto skepticism is difficult to reconcile with his own history of engagement with the asset class — and the industry noticed immediately.
At roughly the same period he now criticizes, Musk’s tweets about Dogecoin were among the most market-moving forces in crypto. His posts sent the meme token surging repeatedly, minting and erasing billions in market value based on a single message. Whether that constitutes Dogecoin having “merit” by his courtroom definition is a question his critics are already asking.
Tesla’s relationship with Bitcoin is equally complicated. The company made a high-profile $1.5 billion Bitcoin purchase in early 2021 — a move that sent the market soaring and signaled that institutional adoption had arrived. Tesla then sold 75% of its holdings in mid-2022, partially missing the extraordinary bull run that followed Donald Trump’s election, when Bitcoin climbed above $120,000. The remaining position still sits on Tesla’s balance sheet.
SpaceX holds a separate Bitcoin position. And as reported earlier this month, Musk’s father Errol revealed in an interview with BeInCrypto that Elon and his brother Kimbal jointly hold approximately 23,400 Bitcoin — worth roughly $1.7 billion at current prices. For someone who believes most crypto is fraudulent, the family’s on-chain footprint is substantial.
What the OpenAI Trial Could Actually Decide
Beyond the crypto commentary, the stakes of the trial itself are significant. OpenAI is preparing for what could be one of the largest IPOs in history — and the outcome of a three-week legal battle with its most prominent co-founder could materially affect that process.
Musk is seeking to block or reverse OpenAI’s corporate restructuring, which has already attracted billions in investment from some of the world’s most sophisticated institutions. If he succeeds, the implications for OpenAI’s IPO timeline and valuation could be significant. If OpenAI prevails, it validates the restructuring and clears a major legal obstacle before going public.
The ICO revelation — that OpenAI once considered a crypto fundraise that Musk may have supported — adds a layer of irony to both sides of the dispute. A company now worth hundreds of billions briefly considered a token sale. Its co-founder, now a vocal critic of most crypto, may have endorsed that idea at the time. The gap between 2018 and 2026 contains a lot of changed positions on both sides.
Where This Leaves the Crypto Industry
Musk’s courtroom statement will circulate widely — and it will be used selectively by critics of crypto to validate skepticism and by crypto advocates to point out the hypocrisy of a man whose market influence on Dogecoin alone reshaped billions in value.
The more interesting question is what the comment reveals about how crypto is perceived by the people who have shaped it most. Musk’s nuanced position — some projects have merit, most are fraudulent — is actually closer to the mainstream view than most in the industry would like to admit. The challenge for crypto has always been that the legitimate projects and the scams are difficult to distinguish from the outside, and that difficulty is exactly what bad actors have exploited for years.
The trial continues. OpenAI has not yet rested its case.
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