Elon Musk Seeks To End $258-B Dogecoin Suit

Elon Musk has asked a US judge to throw out a $258-billion racketeering lawsuit accusing him of running a pyramid scheme to support the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, Jonathan Stempel reported for Reuters.

Photo Insert: Lawyers for Musk and his electric car company Tesla Inc. called the lawsuit by Dogecoin investors a "fanciful work of fiction" over Musk's "innocuous and often silly tweets" about Dogecoin.

In an evening filing in Manhattan federal court, lawyers for Musk and his electric car company Tesla Inc. called the lawsuit by Dogecoin investors a "fanciful work of fiction" over Musk's "innocuous and often silly tweets" about Dogecoin.

The lawyers said the investors never explained how Musk intended to defraud anyone or what risks he concealed, and that his statements such as "Dogecoin Rulz" and "no highs, no lows, only Doge" were too vague to support a fraud claim.

The investors' lawyer, Evan Spencer, said in an email: "We are more confident than ever that our case will be successful."

Investors accused Musk of deliberately driving up Dogecoin's price by more than 36,000% over two years and then letting it crash. They said it generated billions of dollars of profit at Dogecoin investors' expense even as Musk knew the currency had no intrinsic value.

Investors also pointed to Musk's appearance on a "Weekend Update" segment of NBC's "Saturday Night Live" where he called Dogecoin "a hustle." The $258 billion damages figure is triple the estimated decline in Dogecoin's market value in the 13 months before the lawsuit was filed.

WEEKLY FEATURE : MVP Group Keeps Lights On During Pandemic