Elon Musk seeks to end US$258 billion Dogecoin lawsuit
channelnewsasia.comNEW YORK: Elon Musk asked a US judge on Friday (Mar 31) to throw out a US$258 billion racketeering lawsuit accusing him of running a pyramid scheme to support the cryptocurrency Dogecoin.In an evening filing in Manhattan federal court, lawyers for Musk and his electric car company Tesla called the lawsuit by Dogecoin investors a "fanciful work of fiction" over Musk's "innocuous and often silly tweets" about Dogecoin.The lawyers said the investors never explained how Musk intended to defraud anyone or what risks he concealed, and that his statements such as "Dogecoin Rulz" and "no highs, no lows, only Doge" were too vague to support a fraud claim."There is nothing unlawful about tweeting words of support for, or funny pictures about, a legitimate cryptocurrency that continues to hold a market cap of nearly US$10 billion," Musk's lawyers said. "This court should put a stop to plaintiffs' fantasy and dismiss the complaint."In a footnote, the lawyers also rejected the investors' claim that Dogecoin qualified as a security.The investors' lawyer, Evan Spencer, said in an email: "We are more confident than ever that our case will be successful."Investors accused Musk, the world's second-richest person according to Forbes, of deliberately driving up Dogecoin's price by more than 36,000 per cent over two years and then letting it crash.They said this generated billions of dollars of profit at other Dogecoin investors' expense, even as Musk knew the currency lacked intrinsic value.Investors also pointed to Musk's appearance on a Weekend Update segment of NBC's Saturday Night Live where, portraying a fictitious financial expert, he called Dogecoin "a hustle".The US$258 billion damages figure is triple the estimated decline in
