Elon Musk and Tesla have successfully fended off a lawsuit alleging manipulation of Dogecoin (DOGE)'s price.
Elon Musk and Tesla have successfully fended off a lawsuit alleging manipulation of Dogecoin (DOGE)'s price. The case, which sought a staggering $258 billion in damages, was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in New York on August 29.
The lawsuit, filed in June 2022 by a group of disgruntled Dogecoin investors, accused Musk of leveraging his status as the world's wealthiest individual to orchestrate a "Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme." The plaintiffs claimed that Musk's actions led to a meteoric rise in Dogecoin's value, followed by a dramatic crash.
Judge Hellerstein, in his ruling, took aim at the plaintiffs' interpretation of Musk's social media activity. The court found that several of Musk's tweets about Dogecoin, including claims about becoming its CEO and sending a "literal" Dogecoin to the moon via SpaceX, were mischaracterized by the complainants.
"These statements are aspirational and puffery, not factual, and susceptible to being falsified," Judge Hellerstein wrote in his decision. He emphasized that "no reasonable investor" should rely on such tweets for investment guidance.
The dismissal comes after Musk's legal team filed a motion in March, describing the lawsuit as a "fanciful work of fiction." They argued that the enormous damages sought were baseless and that the allegations lacked merit.
Despite the lawsuit's dismissal, Dogecoin's market performance remains subdued. The cryptocurrency's price saw minimal change following the news, with a mere 0.1% increase over 24 hours. DOGE is currently trading at $0.1004, and experienced a 22% decline over the past month, according to CoinMarketCap.
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