Legal representatives for Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, are seeking a court order to dismiss a multi-billion dollar lawsuit accusing the high-profile businessman of engaging in insider trading with Dogecoin (DOGE) at the expense of his online followers. The defense team contends that the allegations are groundless and should be permanently dismissed to prevent the plaintiffs from further burdening the judiciary with additional claims based on Musk’s Twitter activities.
Elon Musk’s ‘Harmless Tweets’
In a document submitted to a federal court in New York on a recent Monday, Alex Shapiro, Musk’s attorney, labelled the repeated legal attempts by the aggrieved investors as “unfounded” and “trivial.” He argued that the lawsuit is solely predicated on Musk’s harmless and frequently humorous tweets concerning DOGE. Shapiro’s letter stated, “There is absolutely no illegality in tweeting words of endorsement for, or amusing images about, a cryptocurrency that boasts a market cap exceeding $11 billion.”
The initial complaint lodged by the plaintiffs in June 2022 demanded $258 billion from Musk as compensation for investor losses resulting from his promotion of DOGE in early 2021. Since then, the lawsuit has been revised thrice, with chief dogecoin fraud case attorney, Evan Spencer, incorporating insider trading and market manipulation allegations into the lawsuit by June 2023.
Accusations Lacking Concrete Evidence
The latest legal document pinpointed specific wallets that Musk purportedly used for DOGE trading while influencing the asset’s price through his tweets. However, Musk’s attorneys countered that the plaintiffs did not provide evidence to prove that any of the specified wallets truly belonged to the CEO.
“Plaintiffs have not been able to establish that Mr. Musk’s cheerleading for Dogecoin – a classic example of non-actionable exaggeration – was materially false or misleading, or that the defendants acted with the necessary intent,” the defense added. The term “exaggeration” refers to a broad and overstated claim that a reasonable person would not interpret as having a precise meaning or intention.
Lawsuit ‘Deficient in Substance’
While both plaintiffs and defendants agreed that Dogecoin is a “highly speculative investment,” the defense emphasized that this fact was “public, widely recognized, and evident.” They noted that even Billy Markus, the creator of Dogecoin, has acknowledged this.
Moreover, Spencer pointed out that the insider trading allegation “fails outright,” since Musk’s private thoughts about what to tweet regarding Dogecoin do not constitute “material non-public information about Dogecoin.”
“Despite having had the chance to file four complaints in this case, the plaintiffs’ allegations still fall considerably short of establishing any cause of action, let alone a sufficiently particularized complaint,” Musk’s legal team wrote.
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