Elon “the Dogefather” Musk has moved to dismiss the $258 billion Dogecoin lawsuit he is facing, according to documents filed with Manhattan federal court. The plaintiffs claim that Musk peddled a pyramid scheme in the form of Dogecoin with accusations including wire fraud and gambling.
In Johnson v. Musk et al., filed in the Southern District of New York federal court, Musk’s lawyers filed a formal motion to dismiss this past Friday in regards to the racketeering lawsuit the tech mogul currently faces for his involvement in promoting the cryptocurrency Dogecoin. According to Reuters, Musk’s lawyers are arguing that the lawsuit is rubbish—more specifically, that the plaintiffs never actually described how Musk’s statements in favor of Dogecoin defrauded anyone, or what risks Musk hid from investors.
“The Complaint is a fanciful work of fiction that fails to state any actionable claim against Defendants Elon Musk and Tesla and must be dismissed in its entirety with prejudice,” Musk’s lawyers wrote in a memorandum related to the motion to dismiss, filed on Friday evening in Manhattan court. “Mr. Musk posted innocuous and often silly tweets about a cryptocurrency called ‘Dogecoin.’ But 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 $10 billion.”
The plaintiffs argue that Musk and his companies intentionally drove up the value of Dogecoin 36,000% over two years before letting it tank, generating billions of dollars in profit at the expense of its investors. Dogecoin has widely been considered a meme currency that rose to prominence at the height of the crypto bubble, a currency that Musk has influence to some extent with value surging 18% after Musk claimed it would be accepted by Tesla, for example. Forbes reported yesterday that the cryptocurrency’s value jumped 10% after Musk’s team filed the motion to dismiss.
Seemingly in response to the Dogecoin lawsuit, Twitter users began noticing the cryptocurrency’s logo appearing in place of the platform’s logo in the upper right corner of the desktop’s website. It’s not clear what exactly this logo serves to say, but it’s likely an attempt by Musk to troll the plaintiffs, the Dogecoin non-believers, or some other party the Chief Twit has a bone to pick with.
The lawsuit was originally filed in June 2022, and since then crypto has taken quite the tumble. Once the herald of a new economy/internet hybrid has now turned into a punchline for most. Notably, crypto exchange FTX took a nose dive in November as $9 billion in customer funds vanished due to a liquidity crisis. More recently, however, Matt Damon admitted he shilled for Crypto.com because his nonprofit was facing financial woes.
Update April 3, 2:25 p.m. EST: This article was updated to include the development that Twitter’s logo was replaced with the Dogecoin logo.