He fancies himself the innovator of our time. “Disrupt” could be his middle name. Technology, it seems, is in his DNA. And yet, Elon Musk apparently—supposedly—has a secret Luddite streak: he doesn’t use a computer.

The revelation didn’t come from a biography or a tell-all interview. It came from a legal filing in the high-stakes, mud-slinging lawsuit between Musk and OpenAI, where the future of artificial intelligence is on trial in a Northern California courtroom. Amid thorny questions of corporate betrayal and billion-dollar secrets, this strange detail stole the show.

Yes, you heard that correctly. It’s not a joke from a late-night show. That’s not me saying it. It’s coming from Musk’s own lawyers.

In a legal letter filed on June 22, Musk’s legal team pushed back against accusations from OpenAI that they were failing to turn over relevant documents. When OpenAI claimed Musk’s team was refusing to collect certain materials, his lawyers called the accusation “incorrect” and, in the process, dropped the bombshell.

“Mr. Musk does not use a computer,” his lawyers at Toberoff & Associates wrote on the first page of the three-page document.

There’s just one problem with that claim: public evidence, including from Musk himself, suggests otherwise. While employees at X told Wired Musk primarily works from his phone, they also note he has been seen using a laptop on occasion.

More pointedly, Musk has referenced owning a computer in his own social media posts. In a December 2024 post on X, he shared an image with the text, “This is a pic of my laptop,” explaining that he was using it to test Starlink’s streaming capabilities in-flight. More recently, in May 2025, when asked about his gaming setup, Musk replied on X that he is “still using my ancient PC laptop with the @DOGE sticker made long ago by a fan.”

This is a pic of my laptop. It’s about 3 years old. A guy in Germany gave me this cool sticker, so I don’t want to upgrade it and lose the sticker. pic.twitter.com/wJZbhpkus8

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 31, 2024

This contradiction emerges from the messy “discovery” phase of his lawsuit against OpenAI, where he accuses CEO Sam Altman of betraying their founding mission. As both sides fight over internal documents, the battle has intensified. This context makes the “no computer” claim seem less like a personal quirk and more like a potential legal tactic to limit the scope of discoverable documents. After all, if there are no computers, there are no computer files to hand over.

The Musk v. Altman case is a proxy war over the governance and ownership of AI. Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI, now portrays himself as its most prominent critic, arguing the company sold its soul to Microsoft. OpenAI, in turn, depicts Musk as a bitter ex-partner trying to interfere with a company he chose to leave.

But for now, the legal drama is being overshadowed by a bizarre claim that is seemingly contradicted by Musk’s own public statements: the man suing over the future of artificial intelligence may be trying to persuade a judge that he has personally abandoned one of the most fundamental tools of the digital world.