Court rules in favor of Elon Musk, Tesla in Dogecoin (DOGE) manipulation case

The US District Court for the Southern District of New York has dismissed a lawsuit against billionaire businessman Elon Musk and his electric automotive company, Tesla. The lawsuit accused Musk of inflating DOGE’s price and profiting from it.

Musk and Tesla are now free from the lawsuit as U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein favored the businessman in the Dogecoin case. The lawsuit accused Musk of pumping the Dogecoin price and profiting from it, which caused over $258 billion in damages.

Musk accused of using X to pump Dogecoin price

The billionaire businessman was accused of using his 195.9 million X follower base alongside his NBC Saturday Night Live appearance in 2021 for inflating Dogecoin’s price. Additionally, he was accused of profiting from these pumps by using several DOGE wallets that he had under control.

The CEO of Tesla faced accusations for driving up DOGE’s price by over 36,000% over the two years and then causing it to crash. He was also accused of timing the trades as per his Dogecoin statements.

The accusations didn’t end there. Musk was also accused of selling Dogecoin in April 2023, when Musk replaced Twitter’s iconic blue bird logo with that of the DOGE logo. This has caused the price of DOGE to surge by 30%.

Judge said it was impossible to understand Dogecoin insider trading claims

Backing the decision to dismiss the lawsuit, Judge Hellerstein stated, “Musk agreed to become Dogecoin’s CEO, and that Musk might put a “literal” Dogecoin in SpaceX and fly it to the moon and that Dogecoin would pay for the mission, that Tesla vehicles could be bought with Dogecoin, and the like.

Judge Hellerstein also stated in his ruling that “it is not possible to understand” the allegations that are forming the basis of the investor’s claim of a market manipulation.

The judge has now dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice. This means that the lawsuit can’t be brought again. The Dogecoin price remained relatively steady and was not showing signs of any surge despite the positive news. DOGE is now hovering above the $0.1 level as per the latest data from CoinGecko.