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Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, rejected a proposal by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in 2018 to establish a cryptocurrency, fearing it would damage the company’s reputation, according to court documents. Musk also disagreed with Altman’s plan to transition OpenAI from a non-profit to a profit-generating entity. Musk later sued Altman and OpenAI for allegedly breaching their non-profit status, but dropped the case only to refile it. A separate class-action lawsuit against Musk and Tesla over allegations of manipulating Dogecoin prices was withdrawn by the plaintiffs on the same day.

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Elon Musk, the bigwig at Tesla, was not on board with a proposal made by Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI, to start a new cryptocurrency in 2018. Musk thought it’d give the company a bad rep, according to documents recently filed in court.

Musk didn’t mince words. He said launching their own cryptocurrency, also known as an initial coin offering or ICO, would make OpenAI and everyone tied to it lose all credibility. His lawyers said this in a document submitted to the court in California on November 14.

This whole ICO thing was put forward by Altman just months after he’d tried to convince Musk to turn their non-profit organization into a profit-making one. Elon Musk, who co-founded OpenAI with Altman, was having none of that either.

Months later, in August, Musk decided to sue OpenAI and Altman again. This, after verbally dropping the case in June. The reason for his lawsuit? He claimed OpenAI had broken its promise to remain a nonprofit.

The whole profit-making proposal seems to have started in September 2017, when Altman and OpenAI’s current president Greg Brockman first proposed the idea. At that time, Musk was definitely not for it, telling them either they do something by themselves or stick with running OpenAI as a nonprofit.

“I’m not going to fund OpenAI until you firmly decide whether to stay or not. Otherwise, I’m just wasting my money on a start-up,” Musk communicated to Altman and Brockman.

His lawyers claimed that not long after Musk stopped their second money-making scheme, the pair were back on the drawing board plotting to go for-profit. The two then agreed to work out some way to raise funds through equities, the lawyers noted.

Elsewhere, on the same day, another lawsuit against Musk was dropped. This one was a class-action lawsuit filed against him and Tesla in 2022, claiming he played around with the price of Dogecoin through his appearances in media and his social media posts. This lawsuit was withdrawn by the plaintiffs on November 14, reported Cointelegraph. They also decided not to seek any relief from Musk and Tesla.