Key Takeaways:
- Elon Musk’s attorney Adam Gabor Mehes has asked to withdraw himself from the Dogecoin manipulation case.
- Musk faces a $258 billion lawsuit alleging he was involved in insider trading
- Musk’s legal team has denied he owns the wallets involved in the alleged pump and dump
YEREVAN (CoinChapter.com) — Attorney Adam Gabor Mehes, who has been one of the top lawyers of Elon Musk, is withdrawing as his attorney in the $258 billion Dogecoin (DOGE) market manipulation case. The development comes amid reports and speculations that he is also quitting Tesla, (NASDAQ: TSLA).
Mehes has served as the company’s in-house lawyer since August 2022. He joined the company after Musk announced that he was “building a hardcore litigation department” and asked for resumes months earlier.
Before joining Tesla, Mehes had served as a litigation counsel at the Wall Street law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell.
Tesla’s legal department has also recently filed a request with the court to bring on board their new attorney, Allison Huebert. The new attorney previously served as a litigator at the law firm Quinn Emanuel, concerning the case involving potential market manipulation of Dogecoin (DOGE).
Elon Musk and two of his companies, Tesla and SpaceX, are facing a $258 billion lawsuit since June 2022.
Elon Musk accused of Dogecoin (DOGE) insider trading
The new Twitter owner faces serious allegations of using a “pump and dump” scheme to profit from the price of Dogecoin (DOGE). The billionaire has reportedly shown his support for the meme token, even adding it as an accepted currency for Tesla merchandise.
Following his appearance on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, a group of Dogecoin (DOGE) investors accused him of utilizing his social media platform to artificially increase the value of the cryptocurrency.
Musk also stands accused of using Twitter posts and paid influencers to push up the Doge price so he can make a profit using wallets belonging to him or his company.
According to investors, Elon Musk’s illegal actions included selling approximately $124 million worth of Dogecoin in April. This sale coincided with his replacement of Twitter’s blue bird logo with the Shiba Inu dog logo, resulting in a significant 30% surge in Dogecoin’s price.
Last week, Elon Musk denied allegations of being a “Dogecoin whale.” According to the Dogefather’s lawyer Alex Spiro, who sent a letter to the plaintiff’s lawyer Evan Spencer, Musk did not manage the accounts that traded in DOGE.
“You specifically allege, without basis, that the following wallets ‘belong’ to Defendants. You are wrong. The sole basis for your claim is that these wallets sold Dogecoin at a time when, according to the Third Amended Complaint, prices were up,”
Spiro said in the June 9 letter, as quoted by The Post.
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Was Musk caught red-handed in pump and dump?
The traders suing Musk cited a tweet he posted in February 2021 to claim he owns a specific wallet involved in the scandal.
According to them, Musk tweeted that he had acquired 28.061971 worth of Dogecoin. The transaction amount is allegedly a reference to Musk’s birthdate of June 28, 1971. The purchase is also visible on the chain, which the complaint has mentioned.
The plaintiffs have insisted that the wallet belongs to Musk. Meanwhile, the Tesla CEO’s legal team maintains he did not pump and dump Doge.
The departure of his attorney Adam Gabor Mehes will certainly come with repercussions. What exactly these will be, is too early to determine.
At the time of writing, Dogecoin exchanges hands for $0.06189, over 91% bellow its all-time high of $0.7376 from May 8, 2021.
