Musk Almost Launched a $10B OpenAI Crypto Token in 2018
Newly surfaced call notes reveal Elon Musk backed an OpenAI ICO before his dramatic exit. The crypto world almost looked very different.
Scout Team
The market's doing something interesting today, but honestly, what happened back in 2018 might be even more fascinating. Turns out Elon Musk was ready to launch OpenAI into the crypto stratosphere with a massive $10 billion token offering. Yeah, you read that right.
According to internal call notes that just surfaced, Musk wasn't just kicking the tires on this idea. He actually agreed to explore creating a for-profit arm specifically for an ICO in early 2018. This was peak crypto mania territory, when everyone and their grandmother was launching tokens. But an OpenAI token? That would've been something else entirely.
Here's where it gets interesting. Musk didn't just walk away from the ICO plan. He bailed on the entire OpenAI project. The same guy who pumps Dogecoin on X (formerly Twitter) and made Tesla buy Bitcoin was apparently cool with turning the AI research lab into a tokenized venture. Until he wasn't.
Think about how different things might've been. We're sitting here in 2026 with ChatGPT dominating headlines and OpenAI valued at over $150 billion. What if they'd gone the crypto route instead? Would we have AI tokens trading on exchanges right now? Would OpenAI have become just another failed 2018 ICO?
The timing here is wild too. This was right before the crypto winter of 2018-2019 hit. Musk might've dodged a bullet, or maybe he saw it coming. Either way, OpenAI stayed focused on AI research, and well, we all know how that turned out. Sometimes the best trades are the ones you don't make.