The attorneys suggest the claims should be dismissed with prejudice to prevent plaintiffs from bringing more Musk-related Twitter accusations to court.
Musk’s ‘Silly Tweets’
Musk's lawyer Alex Shapiro called the investors' repeated pleas “baseless” and “frivolous” in a Monday letter filed in a New York federal court.
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He stated that the case stems from Mr. Musk's frequently humorous tweets on DOGE. “Tweeting words of support for, or funny pictures about, a cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of over $11 billion is legal,” it said.
The plaintiffs' June 2022 case demanded $258 billion from Musk to compensate investors for his early 2021 DOGE promotion. The case has been modified three times, with main attorney Evan Spencer adding insider trading and market manipulation claims by June 2023.
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Musk reportedly traded DOGE from specific wallets while tweeting about its price, according to the latter document. His attorneys said plaintiffs had no proof that any of the wallets belonged to the CEO.
“Plaintiffs fail to state a claim that Mr. Musk’s cheerleading for Dogecoin – quintessential inactionable puffery – was materially false or misleading, or that Defendants acted with the require intent,” it continued.
“Puffery” is a vague, exaggerated remark that a reasonable person cannot interpret.
Musk's defendants argue his tweets “Dogecoin to the moooonn,” and “Dogecoin will live forever” were puffery.
Lawsuit ‘Fails On Its Face’
Plaintiffs and defendants agreed that Dogecoin is a “highly speculative security investment,” but the defendants claimed that this was “public, widely known, and obvious,” noting that founder Billy Markus had conceded this.
Spencer says plaintiffs' insider trading claim “fails on its face” because Elon's private intents about tweeting about Dogecoin are “not material non-public information about Dogecoin.”
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Musk's attorneys stated, “Plaintiffs have had the opportunity to file four complaints in this case and their allegations continue to fall well short of pleading any cause of action, let alone a sufficiently particularized complaint.”
