Judge Hellerstein dismisses the Dogecoin manipulation lawsuit against Elon Musk and Tesla two years after it was filed, citing a lack of evidence.
An accusation against Tesla chief Elon Musk and his electric motor company would not proceed to trial after a court threw out the case late Thursday. Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that the evidence provided that Musk manipulated Dogecoin was inadmissible.
According to the judge, the case lacked evidence to continue as the plaintiff’s claims were not synchronous with the evidence provided. He then dismissed the lawsuit on those legal grounds.
Recall that a group of investors sued Musk and Tesla two years back for allegedly manipulating Dogecoin for personal gain, claiming he hurt holders of the memecoin. In the June 2022 lawsuit, the plaintiffs demanded a staggering $258 billion compensation for damages and losses.
Evidence is Inadmissible
In his ruling two years later, Judge Hellerstein stated that the evidence brought forward was a clear misinterpretation of Musk’s tweets about DOGE.
The investors claimed that Musk promoted Dogecoin through his tweets, making comments about how the memecoin was the future of cryptocurrency, how he was the CEO of Dogecoin, and how he would literally fly the token through SpaceX to the moon.
However, Judge Hellerstein noted that Musk’s tweets were his fantasies and aspirations, which were subject to falsification and misinterpretation. The judge also stated that they were Musk’s opinion, and that no rational investor should see them as financial advice.
The court also dismissed Musk’s “pump and dump” allegations. Judge Hellerstein noted that market manipulation, according to the law, involves inside trading, and the accusations didn’t provide evidence of such activity. The plaintiff accused Musk of pumping Dogecoin by over 36,000% in two years and allowing it to crash.
DOGE barely moved after the court threw out the lawsuit, as it continued to consolidate amidst a broader market downtrend. At the time of writing, Dogecoin was trading at $0.1001, down over 1% in the past 24 hours. The memecoin remained 8th in the cryptocurrency ranking with a market cap of $14.5 billion.
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