The lawsuit between Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk and Dogecoin investors alleging market manipulation has become increasingly acrimonious with both sides exchanging accusations and criticisms rather than addressing the specifics of the case.
In a court, document filed Thursday in federal court in New York, Evan Spencer, the lead attorney in the class action lawsuit against Elon Musk, repeated his request to bar the billionaire’s lawyers from the case. Mr. Spencer alleged the opposing counsel’s tactics amounted to harassment targeting him personally.
In his filing, Mr. Spencer claimed the defendants seemed to be utilizing substantial financial resources to fund unlawful harassment against him and his clients. This allegation extends previous requests made on June 26 for the court to remove Mr. Musk’s attorneys and impose sanctions for purported misconduct during pre-trial activities.
Central to his allegations, Mr. Spencer cited a letter authored by Mr. Musk’s counsel, Alex Spiro, which was covered in the New York Post on June 15th. The letter called for withdrawing an amended complaint accusing Mr. Musk of covertly owning cryptocurrency wallets involved in major dogecoin sales in April, purportedly to manipulate prices. Mr. Spiro disputed the claims and criticized Mr. Spencer’s qualifications as legal counsel.
In a July 7th response, Mr. Musk’s lawyers denounced Mr. Spencer’s bid to remove them as “insulting” and deemed his leakage allegation against them as unproven. Simultaneously, they contended that sharing such a letter with the media would not have violated ethical standards regardless.
Mr. Spencer rejoined that he had no previous association with the New York Post journalist, so the leaked letter must have originated from Mr. Musk’s counsel or an agent thereof. Furthermore, he stated such tactics would align with Mr. Musk’s reputed preference for aggressive attorneys, citing a May tweet in which the billionaire boasted of assembling a “hardcore litigation department” of “streetfighters” at Tesla.
“Defense Counsels’ misconduct as hereinbefore described is certainly consistent with the ruthlessness Musk evidenced in those tweets,” Mr. Spencer wrote.
He further suggested more smears against him were forthcoming, stating: “Having managed to publish false claims about me in the media once before, Defense Counsels were and are threatening to place this disparagement of me into the public record again,”
Mr. Spencer did not provide evidence for these allegations, nor did he identify any occurrences besides the New York Post story as substantiation.
The $258 billion lawsuit between the world’s wealthiest individual and the meme coin investors commenced in June 2022 over claims that Mr. Musk participated in racketeering to promote the cryptocurrency.
Mr. Musk, who enthusiastically tweeted about his interest in DOGE for years and collaborated with its creators previously, rejects any misconduct.
