It is well known that Elon Musk is one of the biggest promoters of Dogecoinas he has expressed his taste for the ‘meme cryptocurrency’ since 2020. Now, a group of investors filed a class action lawsuit against the CEO of Tesla for alleged abuse of privileged information to influence the price of the ‘Doge’, causing millions in losses.
The class action lawsuit against the billionaire was filed in federal court in Manhattan. In it, he is accused of using different means to ‘inflate’ the price of Dogecoin and benefit from market fluctuations, according to documents cited by CNBC.
The plaintiffs allege that “market manipulation and inside information” allowed Musk to defraud investors, promote himself and his companies “and, with this, would have defrauded investors of said digital currency.
The documents claim that Elon Musk has driven the price of Dogecoin up more than 36,000% over two years, then deliberately caused it to crash, costing investors billions of dollars.
Elon Musk’s alleged strategy with Dogecoin price
Investors explain that the South African businessman used various “publicity stunts” to promote cryptocurrency. Some of these would be his Twitter posts, payment to influencers and his appearance on the show Saturday night Live of NBC in 2021, among others.
As an example, in the lawsuit they state that Elon Musk sold about 124 million Dogecoin, just after replacing the Twitter logo with the ‘Doge’ puppy. This caused a 30% increase in the value of the cryptocurrency.
This is the third amendment to the lawsuit the 51-year-old mogul is facing for commenting in favor of Dogecoin. In June 2022, a former Dogecoin investor named Keith Johnson sued him for $258 billion in damages, alleging that Musk ran a “pyramid scheme” to back the Dogecoin cryptocurrency.
By September of that year, seven more investors joined the lawsuit and filed it collectively. The billionaire’s legal team has sought the dismissal of that second amended lawsuit, calling the allegations “works of fanciful fiction.”
So far, neither Elon Musk nor his lawyers have commented on the new lawsuit against the also owner of Twitter.
Editorial Team The editorial team of EMPRENDEDOR.com, which for more than 27 years has worked to promote entrepreneurship.