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The
decision was issued on Thursday night by U.S. District Judge
Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan.
Investors accused the world's richest person of using Twitter
posts, a 2021 appearance on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and
other publicity stunts to trade profitably at their expense
through several dogecoin wallets that he or Tesla controlled.
They also said Musk deliberately drove up dogecoin's price more
than 36,000% over two years and then let it crash, with he and
Tesla often timing trades to Musk's public statements and
activities concerning dogecoin.
Investors said this included when Musk sold dogecoin in April
2023 after replacing Twitter's blue bird logo with the dogecoin
Shiba Inu dog logo, causing dogecoin's price to rise 30%.
Hellerstein, however, said Musk's tweets that dogecoin was the
future currency of Earth, and could be used to buy Teslas or
literally flown to the moon by his company SpaceX were
"aspirational and puffery, not factual and susceptible to being
falsified."
The judge said that meant no reasonable investor could rely on
the tweets to pursue a securities fraud claim. He also said it
was "not possible to understand" the investors' market
manipulation and insider trading claims.
Hellerstein dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning it
cannot be brought again. Investors originally sought $258
billion and had amended their complaint four times in two years.
Lawyers for the investors did not immediately respond to
requests for comment.
Musk's lawyer Alex Spiro said in an emailed statement: "It's a
very good day for dogecoin."
In seeking a dismissal, Musk's lawyers said there was nothing
wrong his "innocuous and often silly tweets."
They also said there was no proof Musk owned two wallets for
conducting suspicious trading, or that he or Tesla ever sold
dogecoin.
On "Saturday Night Live," Musk called dogecoin a "hustle" while
playing a fictitious financial expert on a segment of "Weekend
Update."
Musk bought Twitter in October 2022 and rebranded it X. He is
worth $239.3 billion according to Forbes magazine.
The case is Gorog et al v. Musk et al, U.S. District Court,
Southern District of New York, No. 22-05037.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Jamie
Freed)
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