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Fox News contributor Caitlyn Jenner is being sued for alleged securities fraud by people who invested in her $JENNER memecoin and lost tens of thousands of dollars, according to a class-action lawsuit filed Wednesday.
Jenner launched $JENNER on the Solana blockchain in May, announcing on Twitter that “it’s not a scam 😂” and that she was “all in.”
The plaintiffs, Naeem Azad of the UK and Mihai Caluseru of Romania, claim they lost a combined $56,000 on $JENNER. Both invested in $JENNER when it was on the Solana blockchain, and then when it relaunched on Ethereum, and both claim that had it not been for “the false and misleading statements and omissions made by Jenner,” they would not have invested in the memecoin. They also claim that similar members of the class bringing this complaint against Jenner didn’t have the “technical and financial sophistication” to understand that they were being defrauded.
“Because this type of digital asset is properly classified as a security under federal and California law, before offering $JENNER for sale to the public, Jenner was required to file registration statements with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, and to comply with all federal and state securities laws, which she willfully failed to do,” the complaint alleges.
It also claims that Jenner used her social media accounts, appearances on podcasts and other public statements to promote $JENNER, and has “continuously, systematically, directly, and repeatedly touted $JENNER’s ability to increase in value based on her managerial and entrepreneurial efforts, thereby manipulating the market and overall valuation of Jenner’s own cryptocurrency, serving her own financial interests.”
The complaint notes that Jenner “solicited the help” of alleged crypto scammer to the stars Sahil Arora, who has run several celebrity memecoin campaigns, including Floyd Mayweather, Offset, and Lindsay Lohan. Shortly after launching $JENNER, Jenner tweeted about Arora’s involvement and ousted him from the project. She wrote, “FUCK SAHIL! He scammed us! BIG TIME!”
“Due to Jenner calling her own project and memecoin a ‘scam,’ $JENNER’s market capitalization rapidly plunged to $5 million as confusion ensued and Jenner issued no concrete explanation,” the complaint says. “Investor holdings began losing the majority of their value very rapidly.” But Jenner wasn’t done with $JENNER: she minted another memecoin with the same name on the Ethereum blockchain, and investors–including the plaintiffs–followed her there, too.
“Naturally, due to the confusion and now-competing memecoin on the Ethereum blockchain, the price of the Solana-based $JENNER began dropping despite Jenner, for a couple of days, continuing to promote it, as well, since she had accumulated her own Solana based $JENNER and was still hoping this token would increase in price,” the complaint states.
The complaint comes a day after president-elect Donald Trump announced he would create the "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE), co-led by Elon Musk and named after a memecoin Musk heavily promoted. (Software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer invented DOGE in 2013 as a joke.) Jenner has been a strong supporter of Trump and Musk throughout this election; On November 6, she tweeted a photo of herself standing between them, with the caption “Hope is back in America. These two men will single-handedly save western civilization and that starts with a strong United States of America. I am here and at your service and forever indebted to your sacrifice for this country. Let’s Make America Great Again!”
Jenner’s stance on Trump’s political career and capacity as a leader has been inconsistent throughout the years. In 2018, she said she was wrong to have supported Trump’s run for president in 2016. “The reality is that the trans community is being relentlessly attacked by this president,” Jenner, who is herself transgender, wrote in the Washington Post. “The leader of our nation has shown no regard for an already marginalized and struggling community. He has ignored our humanity. He has insulted our dignity. He has made trans people into political pawns as he whips up animus against us in an attempt to energize the most right-wing segment of his party, claiming his anti-transgender policies are meant to ‘protect the country.’” In 2020, she said she skipped voting to play golf. Earlier this year, she tweeted a video of her manager Sophia Hutchins giving the finger to re-electing Trump would “restore world peace.”
Jenner hasn’t forgotten about her memecoin, despite being busy campaigning for Trump. “Although the project has failed, trading volume is way down, and Jenner seems to have abandoned the hype,” the complaint states, “she did post about the project as recently as September of 2024, mocking a person who had lost their life savings investing in $JENNER, and still declaring, ‘We aren’t going anywhere.’”
“Why would you put your life savings into a meme coin?” she wrote on Twitter in response to someone saying “I put my life savings into his coin.”
Correction Nov. 15 2024: This article has been edited to accurately state the creators of DOGE.
