Elon Musk and his lawyers have asked that the $258 billion lawsuit against the Tesla founder, which accuses him of running a pyramid scheme to support the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, be dismissed.
In their evening deposition in Manhattan federal court, Musk’s lawyers called the Dogecoin investors’ lawsuit a “fanciful work of fiction” referring to Musk’s “innocent and often silly tweets” about Dogecoin.
They even argued that the plaintiffs have not explained how Musk intended to deceive anyone or what risks he concealed, and pointed out that tweets such as “Dogecoin Rulz” and “no high, no low, just Doge” were too vague to constitute the crime of fraud.
“There is nothing illegal about tweeting words of support or funny pictures about a cryptocurrency,” Musk’s lawyers said. “The court should end the plaintiffs’ fantasy and dismiss the lawsuit.”
In a footnote, the lawyers also rejected the investors’ claim that Dogecoin qualifies as a chattel asset. The investors’ lawyer said for his part: “We are more confident than ever that our case will be successful.”
The investors accuse Musk, the second richest man in the world according to Forbes, of deliberately inflating the price of Dogecoin by more than 36,000% over two years and then letting it collapse.
They claimed that in doing so he created billions of dollars in profits at the expense of other Dogecoin investors, even when Musk knew the currency had no intrinsic value.
What the plaintiffs allege
Investors also pointed to Musk’s appearance on a segment of NBC’s “Weekend Update” on “Saturday Night Live” where, playing a fictional financial expert, he called Dogecoin “a scam.”
The $258 billion in damages is three times the estimated decline in Dogecoin’s market value in the 13 months before the lawsuit was filed.
The non-profit Dogecoin Foundation is also a defendant and is seeking dismissal of the lawsuit.
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