- The class-action lawsuit was filed in 2022.
- Plaintiffs sought $258 billion in damages.
- A judge ruled Musk posts were "aspirational and puffery."
Elon Musk and Tesla secured the dismissal of a June 2022 lawsuit that accused them of defrauding investors by pumping up and then dumping the Dogecoin cryptocurrency, causing investor losses.
The plaintiffs sought $258 billion in damages, claiming that Musk drove up Dogecoin’s price more than 36,000% and then let it crash.
The class-action lawsuit alleged that Musk had posted statements on Twitter, now X, “that Dogecoin is the people’s crypto and the future currency of Earth, that Dogecoin might become the standard for the global financial system and the currency of the internet, that Musk agreed to become Dogecoin’s CEO,” among other actions cited in the suit.
On Thursday night, US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan permanently dismissed the case, writing:
“These statements are aspirational and puffery, not factual and susceptible to being falsified.”
No reasonable investor could rely upon them.
He went on to say:
“As for Musk and Tesla’s alleged ‘pump and dump’ scheme, it is not possible to understand the allegations that form the basis of Plaintiffs’ conclusion of market manipulation.”
In October 2022, Dogecoin soared more than 70% when Musk finalised his acquisition of Twitter, now X.
More recently, in April 2023, changing the X logo to a picture of Kabosu, the shiba dog in the Dogecoin logo, drove the price up more than 30%.
Still, it seems times may be changing.
Last week when Musk promoted Dogecoin with a joking reference on X to serving as head of a “Department of Government Efficiency,” or D.O.G.E for short, the coin’s price rose only about 5%.
Dogecoin was up 0.06% today at $0.1012.
Crypto market movers
- Bitcoin is down 0.2% today to $59,568.
- Ethereum is down 0.9% today to $2,526.
What we’re reading
- How Nayib Bukele’s ‘Iron Fist’ Has Transformed El Salvador — Time
- U.S. House Committee Plans for Heap of Crypto Hearings in September — CoinDesk
- Trump to unveil ambitious plan to make U.S. ‘crypto capital’ — TheStreet
- France’s Telegram blunder means Europe will hunt for Satoshi next — DL News
- Crypto Market Has Evolved in the Past Year, Canaccord Says — CoinDesk
