Investors have gone to federal court in Manhattan, alleging that Elon Musk used his online influence to manipulate the rate of the meme cryptocurrency DOGE. Specifically, Musk wrote tweets and used Influencers to promote Dogecoin, and appeared on NBC’s Saturday Night Live in 2021, the plaintiffs allege. These “publicity stunts” allowed Musk to profitably trade DOGE coins.
The plaintiffs added that in April Elon Musk, as the owner of the social networking site Twitter, replaced its logo with a blue bird with an image of a shiba-inu dog. This led to a 25% jump in the DOGE exchange rate, causing Musk to sell these coins for $124 million, according to a statement from investors. They believe Musk did this deliberately, for the sake of manipulating the market to his advantage.
The investors have asked the court to make these amendments to the class action lawsuit, which was originally filed against Ilon Musk in June 2022. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said he could amend the complaint, believing it would not prejudice the defendants.
Ilon Musk’s lawyer Alex Spiro declined to comment. Earlier this year, Musk’s defense had already asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Dogecoin investors, calling it a bizarre fiction.