US Court Dismisses $258 Billion Lawsuit Against Elon Musk Over Dogecoin Price Manipulation

A US District Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing Elon Musk and Tesla of manipulating the price of Dogecoin, resulting in alleged damages of $258 billion. The lawsuit was rejected on August 29 by US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York.

Judge Hellerstein ruled that Musk’s tweets about Dogecoin, including claims that he would become the cryptocurrency’s CEO and launch a Dogecoin to the moon via SpaceX, were “aspirational” and “puffery” rather than factual statements. The judge concluded that “no reasonable investor” would rely on Musk’s tweets for making sound investment decisions.

The lawsuit, filed by a group of discontented Dogecoin investors in June 2022, alleged that Musk had artificially inflated the cryptocurrency’s value by over 36,000% within two years, only to allow its price to collapse. The plaintiffs claimed Musk used his status as the world’s richest person to run and manipulate what they called the “Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme.”

Musk’s legal team requested the case be dismissed in March, labeling the allegations and the demand for $258 billion in damages as a “fanciful work of fiction” in federal court.

Following the news of the case’s dismissal, Dogecoin’s price remained largely unaffected, with only a 0.1% gain in the last 24 hours. According to CoinGecko, the cryptocurrency is trading at $0.10 and has seen a 20% decline over the past month.