Musk Acquitted of Dogecoin Manipulation Charges in $258 Billion Case

Elon Musk has won a case dismissing a high-profile lawsuit worth $258 billion in which he and his company Tesla were accused of manipulating the price of dogecoin, the popular meme cryptocurrency.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled in favor of Musk and Tesla, dismissing the claims of a group of disgruntled investors.

The lawsuit, filed in June 2022 by a group of dogecoin owners, alleges that Musk and his company used social media and public statements to artificially inflate the price of the token, only to let it crash afterward, causing them significant financial losses.

The plaintiffs claimed that Musk’s tweets and public endorsements of the meme cryptocurrency raised its price by more than 36,000 percent over two years before it ultimately plummeted.

Judge Hellerstein dismissed the allegations, ruling that the statements made by the SpaceX CEO were ‘aspirational’ and constituted ‘puffery’ rather than actionable claims. The judge also found that the statements were not factual and subject to falsification, and that no reasonable investor could rely on them as a basis for making investment decisions.

The complainants pointed to several tweets from the 53-year-old as evidence of material false statements, including his claim that he would become the official CEO of dogecoin and his assertion that he could put ‘literal dogecoin’ on a SpaceX rocket and fly it to the moon.

Pump and Dump Allegations

Investors also accused the tech billionaire and his electric car company of participating in a ‘pump and dump’ scheme. However, the judge found that they failed to provide a clear and convincing explanation of how Musk engaged in such a situation.

– It is impossible to understand the allegations that form the basis of the plaintiffs’ conclusion of market manipulation – wrote Hellerstein in his decision.

According to a Reuters report from March 31, Musk’s legal team had previously sought to dismiss the case, arguing that his plaintiffs had not shown how he intended to defraud anyone or what risks he concealed.

They argued that his tweets, including statements like ‘Dogecoin Rulz’ and ‘no ups, no downs, just Doge’, were too vague to support fraud claims.

– There is nothing illegal about tweeting words of support or funny pictures about a legitimate cryptocurrency that still holds a market capitalization of nearly $10 billion – Musk’s lawyers argued.

They added that the court should put an end to the plaintiffs’ fantasy and dismiss the lawsuit.