According to reports, Elon Musk and his legal team pleaded to a United States court this week to dismiss a $258b lawsuit filed against him. The complaint was launched by investors who complain that the billionaire ran a pyramid scheme to promote dogecoin, a cryptocurrency.
The plaintiffs brought up Musk’s appearance on Saturday Night Live (SNL) in 2021, where he acted “as a fictional financial expert” and dubbed dogecoin “a hustle.” However, his appearance at the show marked the peak of DOGE, the native currency of the Dogecoin network.
Details of the lawsuit against Musk
In the 2022 lawsuit, it was said that Musk “used his position as the world’s wealthiest man to manage and influence the memecoin’s Pyramid Scheme.” Musk was also accused of pushing the price of dogecoin “more than 36,000% over two years and then letting it fall.”
The price of dogecoin fell by more than 25% in the minutes after the televised appearance, reaching a low of $0.50 after reaching a high of $.66 at the beginning of the broadcast.
After making the television appearance, Musk made several attempts to rekindle people’s interest in DOGE.
Only a few days later, he revealed to the people who follow him on Twitter that he is collaborating with “doge developers to increase system efficiency” and that the project “may be fruitful.”
Musk’s attorneys’ argument
According to a story published by Reuters on Apr. 1, the attorneys for Elon Musk argued in Manhattan’s federal court on Mar. 31 that the case against Musk, which dogecoin investors brought in June 2022, was a “fanciful piece of fiction.”
Musk’s attorneys argued that their client’s support for dogecoin on social media, which included remarks such as “dogecoin Rulz” and “no highs, no lows, just doge,” was “too imprecise” to establish a fraud allegation and so should be dismissed.
To persuade the court to “throw out” the multi-billion dollar case, the attorneys for Elon Musk referred to their client’s remarks about dogecoin as “innocuous and frequently ridiculous tweets.”