Elon Musk and his electric automotive company, Tesla, have won the dismissal of a lawsuit that accused them of manipulating the price of Dogecoin, causing $258 billion in damages.
The lawsuit was tossed in an Aug. 29 decision by US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Judge Hellerstein said the defendants made several “material misrepresentations” of Musk’s tweets about Dogecoin, which included Musk saying he would become the official CEO of Dogecoin and that Musk may put a “literal” Dogecoin in a SpaceX vehicle and fly it to the moon.
“These statements are aspirational and puffery, not factual, and susceptible to being falsified [...] and no reasonable investor could rely upon them.”
A group of disgruntled Dogecoin (DOGE) investors filed the lawsuit against Musk and Tesla in June 2022, suing Musk for a staggering $258 billion in damages.
The investors accused Musk of driving up Dogecoin’s price “more than 36,000% over two years and then letting it crash.” They also claimed that Musk had “used his pedestal as the World’s richest man to operate and manipulate the Dogecoin Pyramid Scheme.
Musk requested that the lawsuit be dismissed on March 31, with his lawyers describing the claims and the request for $258 billion in damages as a “fanciful work of fiction” in Manhattan’s federal court.
The price of Dogecoin remained flat following the news of the dismissal, having gained 0.1% in the last 24 hours. At the time of publication, Dogecoin is changing hands for $0.10, and has slid 20% in the last month, according to CoinGecko data.
Dogecoin has traded flat for the last 24 hours but is down 20% on the month. Source: CoinGecko.
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