Elon Musk buys Twitter: Investors accuse Tesla CEO of manipulating Dogecoin price
According to Reuters, Elon Musk has been accused by a Dogecoin investor of manipulating the price of Dogecoin. The defendants are seeking $258 billion in damages. In the lawsuit, Keith Johnson accused Musk of promoting Dogecoin to inflate its price and “drain” the token for personal gain.
“Musk used his social status to manipulate and manipulate the price of Dogecoin for profit. Defendants knew DOGE had no value and never promoted this cryptocurrency for profit,” Keith Johnson said.
Elon Musk’s lawyer says the lawsuit is a fabrication of the Tesla CEO’s mocking tweet about Dogecoin. Elon Musk’s legal representative said investors never explained how Elon Musk deceived them. Stupid tweets about Dogecoin are too vague to blame American billionaires.
“It’s not illegal to post funny pictures or show support for a cryptocurrency with a market cap of nearly $10 billion. The court should dismiss the defendant’s fictional story and dismiss the claim,” Musk’s lawyers said.
Evan Spencer, the defense’s attorney, said he was confident Musk’s lawsuit would succeed.
Elon Musk is known to be a supporter of the popular meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE). According to Business Insider, the American billionaire has been talking about DOGE since 2019 and frequently posts promoting the memecoin.
In early May 2021, Dogecoin peaked at $0.739, a more than 14-fold increase from its price in early January 2021. The bull market came before Elon Musk on Saturday Night Live. Before the show, Musk tweeted about Dogecoin several times on his personal Twitter.
At the time, the American billionaire thought he would mention Dogecoin on TV, causing many investors to rush to buy DOGE, triggering a “wave” of FOMO (fear of missing out). However, Elon Musk’s attempt to promote memecoin on TV failed. The cryptocurrency experienced a massive sell-off shortly after Saturday Night Live aired.
Elon Musk mentioned Dogecoin on the show. In the end, the billionaire played a financial expert trying to explain the craze surrounding Dogecoin.
According to the script, he sees the DOGE price increase as “hustle.” This should have been a negative statement, causing the price of the memecoin to plummet.