In a court filing on Wednesday night in Manhattan court, Dogecoin (DOGE) investors accused Tesla Chief Executive Officer and Twitter owner Elon Musk of inside trading. The investors alleged that the billionaire manipulated the memecoin and caused them losses in billions of dollars.
According to the filing, investors alleged that Elon used Twitter posts to manipulate Dogecoin’s price to his advantage. They also alleged that the change of Twitter’s blue bird logo to the memecoin was another calculated effort to cash in on the token, noting that the Tesla CEO withdrew $124 million worth of Dogecoin after the action caused a 30% price spike.
Elon has never hidden his admiration for Dogecoin since heavily investing in it in 2021. The exiting Twitter CEO has promoted the memecoin a couple of times in his tweets and stated in 2021 that Tesla would start accepting Dogecoin as a means of payment. The token, however, plunged after he reverted the logo to default.
Elon Pulls Stunts to Back Doge: Investors
The plaintiff also alleged that Elon used stunts like paying influencers, his NBC Saturday Night Live show appearance, and other publicity mediums to promote Dogecoin to their detriment. According to the investors, Elon’s Dogecoin activities were a “deliberate course of carnival barking, market manipulation, and inside trading.”
As stated in the filing, Elon promoted the dog-themed memecoin, a token without proper value, to over 36,000% in two years, made a fortune from it, then allowed it to crash. All these were to promote himself and his companies, SpaceX and Tesla, as the investors alleged.
Judge to Allow Third Amended Complaint
The judge ruling over the case, Alvin Hellerstein, noted he would allow investors to amend the complaint for the third time but stated he would not attach prejudice from the initial filings. Hellerstein also granted the plaintiff’s request to remove the Dogecoin non-profit foundation as a defendant.
The plaintiffs first opened the case in June 2022, when they sued Elon and his companies for promoting Dogecoin and requested $258 billion in compensation for losses. The Tesla boss and his company moved to nullify the second amendment in March, stating that the filing was “a fanciful work of fiction.”
