District Judge Alvin Hellerstein dismissed a lawsuit against Elon Musk and electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla over the promotion of Dogecoin. American Keith Johnson sought $258 billion in damages and compensation.
The plaintiff aimed to prohibit the billionaire and his companies from promoting the coin and sought to declare trading in this cryptocurrency as “gambling.” He alleged that the defendants manipulated the market and were involved in insider trading.
The judge noted that the tweets by Musk mentioned in the complaint “are aspirational and puffery, not statements of fact.”
“[…] and no reasonable investor could rely on them,” the ruling stated.
The DOGE quotes did not react to the court’s decision. Over the past day, the decline was 1.2%, according to CoinGecko.
The legal battle began in June 2022 when Johnson accused SpaceX, Tesla, and Musk of promoting the “cryptocurrency pyramid” Dogecoin. According to Bloomberg, he sought to represent a group of individuals who lost money trading or investing in DOGE since April 2019.
In spring 2023, lawyers for Musk and his companies described the investor’s claims as a “fanciful work of fiction.” They argued that the entrepreneur’s tweets were not fraudulent.
Previously, Musk actively promoted the meme cryptocurrency. In April 2022, he proposed reducing the cost of Twitter Blue and adding the option to pay for subscriptions in DOGE. In January, Tesla began selling merchandise for Dogecoin.
In February 2023, the price of the meme cryptocurrency responded by rising above $0.087 following a series of tweets by Musk. The entrepreneur introduced his Shiba Inu dog named Floki as the CEO of Twitter and a new member of the company’s board of directors.
In August 2024, the billionaire countered a proposal from U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump to join his team by posting an image of himself with the caption D.O.G.E.